


Enter Deep and Bring Home

by NoContractTermination



Category: K-pop, NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Boys in Skirts, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic, Edgeplay, Friends With Benefits, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Happy Ending, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Online Dating, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Riding, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 10:48:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11034633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoContractTermination/pseuds/NoContractTermination
Summary: Taeil is a bored grad student with unresolved urges. Ten is a retired sex performer looking to settle down. They meet online, learn to compromise, and meet somewhere in the middle.





	Enter Deep and Bring Home

**Author's Note:**

> \- Content warning: mentions of child suicide (unnamed character), mentions of homophobia  
> \- The plot is centered around a friends-with-benefits relationship. There is a lot of porn.  
> \- Thank you for reading, and please enjoy!

There were pieces of Taeil that felt a little broken knowing what the world was capable of bringing him to.

He looked down at the sheet of paper he'd written Ten's address on, checked to make sure the building number was right, then looked back up at the tower in front of him that loomed over the drive like some sort of gatekeeper. 

Ten lived in a skyscraper that skirted the clouds; the drive was lain with bricks and the air smelled uppity, like black and gold. This whole ordeal was starting to seem like a dreamscape where Ten was the day that kept repeating itself, and the closer Taeil walked to the marble floored lobby, the more surreal it became. 

This was not how he, or anyone, had expected his 23-year-old life to pan out. Then again, his public life spent pursuing a master’s in linguistics at a prestigious university was the definition of predictable. Everyone had those days they didn’t talk about, the hours they spent doing things inexplicable to the outside world: Doyoung smoked, Taeyong slept for 12 hours straight some weekends, Yuta got in these moods where he wouldn’t talk to certain people for days on end. And Taeil had imaginary roleplay sex with a stranger online. 

This was not his only vice, but it was the only one no one else knew about. He hated rocking the boat. And upon breaking the news, the boat would definitely be rocked. Not only that, it would flip over and capsize and leave the entire crew stranded in limbo. This was not like Taeil; in fact, this was so out of character that sometimes he wondered if there were another personality brewing inside of him that only got more desperate the more he shoved it down.

He managed to convince himself it was this second personality, this alter ego of his that took the subway across the city this afternoon and made its way to this upscale apartment complex. It only became real when the receptionist in the lobby asked whom he was here to see, and he sputtered out, "T-Ten." 

God, he didn’t even know Ten’s last name.

The past 6 months started on Tinder, or OkCupid, or some other generic site. Taeil didn’t even remember anymore. Ten was a miracle, but Taeil naively responding to every single message he received most definitely enabled the fated relationship.

Ten’s first message was _hey babycakes wanna have some fun ;)_. Taeil still used it sometimes as a conversation starter, to which Ten responded with something like _you goddamn brat_.

_Punish me then_ Taeil would reply. But that was now, and this was then, when they’d first met and were still investigating the boundaries between acceptable and too familiar, things that would unravel with time.

_Like what kind of fun?_ Taeil had replied then, prim and proper with a touch of curiosity, and honestly he wasn’t expecting much of a response either. After all, he never much got replies when he told people he wasn’t interested but they could still be friends. Apparently, no one wanted to be just-friends. 

Ten was probably a person who would’ve wanted to be just-friends. Fortunately they managed to bypass that entire situation because Taeil was very much interested. Ten was gorgeous.

_oh i dunno playing with legos or maybe a blowjob_ Ten replied, and Taeil vividly recalled laughing out loud in the grad library, catching looks from his cohorts. 

_Ha ha._ he sent back.

The dating site’s native messaging app was clunky and inefficient, but Ten responded immediately. _is that your idea of a yes? cmon i need a real yes or it’s no deal_

_Okay, maybe let’s start with the legos fun and then we can move onto the dick fun._

_that’s better babe_

They actually did end up playing imaginary Legos. Roleplay Legos. By the time Taeil found out Ten was originally from Thailand, they'd built a castle and a whole army of guards traipsing through their text conversation, masquerading as the thread of innocence that held everything together. This happened comfortably over the course of several days without a set goal in mind; they were feeling around for each other like divers underwater, shrouded in anonymity and the darkness of the unknown, and it was kind of fascinating.

**[9:57AM] Taeil:** Dont castles have watchtowers? Where should we put those?

**[10:01AM] Ten:** idk im not an architect. put them near the back so it’s hard 2 hit but they can still see

**[10:05AM] Taeil:** Ok so what DO you do then?

**[10:06AM] Ten:** for a living? u’ll have to unlock more levels to get that information babe ;)

**[10:23AM] Taeil:** You’re being difficult. I just wanted to say your korean is really good.

These were sent during a lecture Taeil only attended because he was paying for it. The drone of the fan in the old, rickety auditorium had the speaker’s voice echoing off the rafters like a bunch of pinballs. The acoustics were horrible and the air was hot with the drowsiness of a Monday morning in May. 

Ten was little more than a welcome distraction at the right time, a cup of coffee with breakfast. There was something clever about him, cultured, but not in the old university-student-turned-corporate-manager kind of way. He was the neighbor from the other social circle. He was the dark figure standing in the museum, contemplating a small, unimportant piece for hours. He was the boy who was rumored to be nice, but you were always too intimidated to talk to him so you fell back in line instead and stole glances from behind your textbook and taped up glasses.

**[11:02PM] Ten:** ;) i get by. so do u wanna connect the bridge 2 the door or keep it separate ?

**[11:05PM] Taeil:** Separate. So we can move it if necessary

**[11:20PM] Ten:** sounds like a plan soldier. i like ppl who know what they want

**[11:30PM] Taeil:** This is one of my good days :)

Ten kept the conversation robust: flowing without needing to struggle for words. He always left Taeil with something unanswered so that the next exchange came naturally. 

This time, Taeil was lying in bed. He lived in a studio apartment with a kitchen and a small bathroom, where the bed took up more than a quarter of the living space. Papers and half-read textbooks littered the floor, books made bookshelves for more books, and beer and liquor bottles were stacked in a little tower near the door. Taeil slept huddled against the wall, and a small noisemaker in the corner of his room drowned out sounds of city traffic and lulled him to sleep every night. For the first time in a while, Taeil felt restless.

Life was steady and lukewarm. Life was drowsy during the day, but awash with the colors of unburned energy at night. Doyoung, Taeyong, and Yuta were scattered across the continent aiming for the top of their respective fields. Taeil was drifting along just fine, in an unfulfilled, inglorious kind of way. It was loneliness masked as boredom. 

"It’s your biological clock ticking," Doyoung said smartly. He was the only one around these days when he wasn’t off making some sort of research presentation across the country. Taeil didn’t just consume all that alcohol himself. They actually fixed themselves a rather nice meal and drank mindfully while they caught up with each others’ lives. This conversation usually consisted of Taeil listening to Doyoung complain about his incompetent cohorts and his ass of a supervisor who kept nitpicking at his thesis while taking him to research conferences in Europe.

"What does that even mean," said Taeil.

Doyoung nursed the bottle of beer in his hand and swirled it around, his bottom lip sticking out. "You’re horny."

Taeil sighed. "Doyoung, for the last time, I’m not getting back t—"

"Oh, gross, not me," Doyoung said, squinting and fanning his hand in front of him as if he could wave off the thought. "We both remember how that went." 

Taeil chuckled and stared at the table, tugging at his earring. "It was fun," he protested weakly, and Doyoung laughed.

"I don’t have the energy to keep up with you, little vixen," Doyoung said, the side of his mouth quirking up into a smirk. "You were holding back then, weren’t you?" he added, a little softer. 

Taeil flushed, his face growing warm with alcohol. "I didn’t want to scare you off," Taeil said. "As a friend."

So they had broken intervals of experimentation back at the beginning of college. It was hard to believe more than 5 years had passed since then. They were both out of the closet, free from parental supervision, and horny as fuck. Apparently Doyoung had been the hornier of the two because he was the one who gave in after a bunch of nonsensical banter and agreed to fuck Taeil and actually came while doing it too, though he stubbornly insisted to this day that he didn’t love it. 

Doyoung rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. You think that’s scary? As if I haven’t heard of BDSM before."

"I’m not _that_ extreme," said Taeil, and Doyoung clapped his shoulder roughly.

"No, I shouldn’t have reacted like that," said Doyoung. "And I’m sorry."

Taeil crossed his legs and leaned back, playing with his bottle cap. "You’ve apologized like a million times, and it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I’m over it."

Taeil was not over it. Well, he was over the whole Doyoung freaking out when Taeil asked to be called a slut, but Doyoung was an uptight kid from a Christian family and Taeil had _known_ that but asked anyway. This was more recent, near the beginning of graduate school. They were both stupid, they’d both made mistakes. Doyoung wordlessly broke their undergrad tryst off by getting a boyfriend. They never really talked about it, and Taeil didn’t think twice when Doyoung and Jaehyun broke up a few years later. Taeil only wanted back in when they all started grad school, everyone moved out of the shared house, and life seemed out of control. 

Doyoung flew back into the country for fall break and stayed with Taeil for a few days. They drank, they chatted, Doyoung ran his hands through Taeil’s hair, and Taeil kissed Doyoung on the lips sweet and tentative, and Doyoung seemed to enjoy it. "Can we try something different this time?" Taeil said, seated delicately in Doyoung’s lap. Thinking back on it, Doyoung had probably anticipated Taeil asking to fuck him, but of course Taeil at the time was selfish and had a one-track mind. They could’ve worked out if they were both willing to compromise a little, but they were like two parallel highways that followed the same path but would never meet. 

"Stop, no, that’s not sexy Taeil, why would you want that?" Doyoung hissed right into Taeil’s mouth.

They were both still half hard, and it took everything Taeil had to lean back after a sensual kiss and murmur, "Just a ’no’ would’ve been fine."

Doyoung apologized the next morning. This was why they were friends: Doyoung could be blunt and a little abrasive, but he always took responsibility for his own shit. Their friendship was not without mistakes. But at least after all these years, it was still a friendship. 

Taeil forgave him. Taeil was over it. He still kinda wanted to be called a slut, though.

"I mean, it’s not my cup of tea, but there are people out there. Way hotter than me, too," said Doyoung, leaning over the table with his head propped up in his hands. Fall break was the last time they’d seen each other until now, and Doyoung hadn’t changed much. His routinely mussed hair was comforting, his round glasses like home. The curl of Doyoung’s upper lip was one of the many things Taeil could count on staying in his life.

"Oh, come on," Taeil replied. "You sell yourself short. You’ve hooked up a few times this year already, right? What about that girl from Busan?"

Doyoung picked at his nails and laughed a little wryly. "She won’t peg me. Pegging isn’t even that weird. You call me vanilla, too. I think I’d better stick with guys."

This time it was Taeil’s turn to pat Doyoung, but he had to lean over the table awkwardly to reach and ended up just swatting at his shoulder.

Doyoung accepted it anyway and groaned in despair. "Look at us, two lovesick woeful men!" he whined.

"Lust-sick," mumbled Taeil, and Doyoung stuck his tongue out at him.

"Fuck outta here with your linguistics." Doyoung took a big gulp of his drink and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand cartoonishly. "Besides, are you not looking for a long-term relationship?"

Taeil shrugged. "It’ll come."

Doyoung raised his eyebrows. "You seemed like the settling down type, but I guess you’ve always been full of surprises, too."

Taeil stared out the window into the night, where the sky glowered back at him with the kind of dark, radiant blue only visible at this time of year, when the days dragged on past 9PM and upstanding citizens walked their dogs after dinner in the fading light. This was years worth of observation in a single night. This was the still sanctity of life.

Doyoung slumped onto the table. "By the way, did I really ask you to go out with me again?"

"You ask that every time you get drunk, Doyoung," said Taeil, and Doyoung rolled over and buried his face in his arm.

So Taeil made a Tinder (or OkCupid, or eHarmony) profile and replied to message after message until Ten appeared like a thief in the night. 

**[11:33PM] Ten:** ok fair enough. no ones all commanding or sub… i can take the reins too ;)

**[11:35PM] Taeil:** Id like that. Lead me.

**[11:40PM] Ten:** sounds like a plan soldier ;)

But Ten was already leading. He led without making it obvious, like hydrodynamic propulsion. He got into your brain and guided you to your thoughts. He held your hand while walking you into the jungle. His capitalization felt friendly, his punctuation almost empathetic; he was good. He was someone who’d been communicating online his entire life. He had the kind of experience that fit the criteria. 

This was the backdrop against which everything unfolded. This was the world that Taeil had unwrapped with whatever about his online profile had attracted Ten, and this was the course he was going to see through to the end. 

_so about your proposal_ Ten sent out like a drone surveying the land.

—

_Moon Taeil_  
Interested in: men  
Looking for: long-term relationship, casual dating, casual sex 

_Bio:  
I’m looking for someone to teach me about sex. Doesn’t have to be a formal relationship but can be. I want to be experienced but dont know where to start. Please be experienced. I like people who are respectful and kind but willing to try new things, also if they are funny. Also I like birds and dogs._

It was actually so embarrassing the first time he wrote it out that he never went back to look at it again, despite receiving all sorts of messages asking for clarification or "what he meant." For all intents and purposes, he thought he’d been pretty clear. He _was_ half-drunk when he wrote it though, some piece of logic hoping that the weirdness would drive unsavory people away. Instead, he got a bunch of people trying to be savory but failing at it so utterly that it was just painful.

Considering recent experiences, then, Ten’s next message was a welcome surprise.

**[12:09AM] Ten:** what do u want to know

**[8:52AM] Taeil:** Everything

**[11:26AM] Ten:** now YOURE being difficult. i need some direction pumpkin. r u a virgin?

**[11:28AM] Taeil:** No

**[11:32AM] Ten:** see thats way more helpful!! am i gonna have to play 20 questions with u?

**[12:10PM] Taeil:** Look Im bored with my sex life and want to make it more exciting !

**[12:11PM] Ten:** now was that so hard?? ;)

Taeil flushed up to his ears, a reluctant smile blooming on his face. The proposal, like Doyoung said, was sex. Taeil was not about to make a fool of himself bar-hopping or hanging around nightclubs only to reveal in the stranger's apartment later, half naked, that he had no idea what he was doing. Fucking around with Doyoung didn’t count. It was fun at first, but after a while it stopped being hot because they had no romantic feelings for each other and Doyoung was incredibly vanilla. But life was just a bunch of mistakes strung together on a steady line that connected them like knots in thread. Life would keep going regardless, so you might as well fuck up and learn something from it. 

**[12:15PM] Taeil:** Fine. I want YOU to make my sex life exciting

**[12:16PM] Ten:** perfect. when do u wanna meet up?

**[12:17PM] Taeil:** No

**[12:17PM] Taeil:** I mean not yet

When did life lead Taeil astray?

He moved around the country several times as a child with his memory barely intact, hardly able to piece together what it meant to not know stability until almost high school. None of his childhood friendships survived the fallout. 

His parents led a loveless relationship that hinged on the child they were raising together. Though Taeil couldn’t say he wasn’t grateful for at least the support of a structured family life: it was like being raised by friends, or a brother and a sister. The toxic patriarchal power dynamic so central to most married couples was gone. Taeil grew up learning that love was not the person you built your life around, which was maybe why he went for Doyoung at first: functional, compatible, contained. He learned that sexual attraction was a fickle mistress, or in this case, a stranger from Thailand, edging him with bad capitalization. 

**[12:20PM] Ten:** ok i'll bite. whats up with that

**[1:54PM] Taeil:** It's not anything exciting. Im just awkward

**[2:10PM] Ten:** ok but think of it this way. just awkward is easier to work with. that's ur only issue?

**[3:01PM] Taeil:** Yea for now, I cant make any promises tho

Liking boys only became real in the middle of high school, when the news broadcasted the local suicide of a gay middle school student. The grieving parents set up a foundation in repentance, and Taeil quietly donated his leftover allowance that week and lied awake in bed staring up at the ceiling and wondering what it was like to know your sexuality that early and still suffer from that magnitude of inner turmoil among other things. This haunted him up to high school, wanting to be gay but not wanting to suffer the consequences. Well, not really _wanting_ to be it, because it wasn’t like sexual orientation was something you chose. It seemed pretty obvious that boy would’ve chosen to stop being gay if he could. 

Taeil was starting to learn Ten’s schedule. He went to sleep later than Taeil and woke up around 11 or noon every day. He’d usually send out a few probes around midnight or 1, and when Taeil didn’t respond, Ten would stop. On days Taeil had classes to teach or lectures to attend, he’d get back to Ten around 8 in the morning. This was comfortable because secretly, it was hard being the one left hanging at night, especially since Taeil didn’t have much going for him while on the other hand, Ten was an abundance of mystery and beauty. Taeil could at least have this one thing: being the person who said goodbye first.

**[3:05PM] Ten:** ok as long as it's not any of that depressing insecure bullshit. i mean we can work with that too but. yea

**[3:21PM] Taeil:** Youre an asshole. Ppl with insecurities deserve care too

**[3:25PM] Ten:** i know and look i get it and im sorry. 

**[3:25PM] Ten:** im sure there r loving caring wonderful people out there to care for them. 

**[3:26PM] Ten:** but i need to set my own boundaries too right

**[4:16PM] Taeil:** Ur right. Sorry

Boundaries. That might’ve been what had gone wrong with Doyoung. There were some principles that you needed to talk about when you were gay and so was your same-sex best friend. But talking implied promises, and promises implied permanence, and permanence implied making a decision you could never take back. Okay, so Doyoung was hot. That probably should’ve been said at the outset, too, but the risk of losing a friend to the universe’s unpredictable laws of attraction was something Taeil had a hard time stomaching. 

**[4:43PM] Ten:** ok talk to me pumpkin

**[4:44PM] Ten:** i cant read u from here but i can tell somethings up

**[5:10PM] Taeil:** Idk I just need time to process

**[5:13PM] Ten:** ok process. text me when ur done. consider it ur first lesson about sexual relationships. boundaries

**[5:21PM] Taeil:** I'll do my homework ;)

That was the first time Taeil had the last word. It was a delicate burden, a passive responsibility. It was supposed to feel powerful. And yet, it was wholly unpleasant.

Taeil had a friend in high school who was too unimportant to be named. The friend, in fact, represented all unnamed straight men who feared gay men for the sole reason that being the object of a man’s attention undermined their sense of masculinity. They feared, in essence, being subjected to the same treatment to which they subjected women. They knew, though not nearly intimately enough, the withering power of a man’s gaze. They were the curators of that gaze, and feared anyone who challenged that. 

The unnamed friend, with the forgivable naivete of a high school boy, said, "Oh, you’re gay? Okay, but as long as you don’t like _me_."

These responses, for confused young boys like Taeil, formed the basis of an erroneous belief fierce and impenetrable that most things were better left unsaid. That even if Doyoung was gay and hot, _you_ were not the one who called the shots. Even when there were no more toxic, morally decayed men in your life, some omnipotent being, or the internalized homophobia inside you, would determine at what point you would fall. You could make no promises. 

**[10:32PM] Taeil:** I miss you

Ten, who had always seemed available at any time of day, especially at nighttime, did not respond. 

**[11:03PM] Taeil:** Ten I’m done processing I miss you

**[11:35PM] Taeil:** Ten Where are you?

**[12:00AM] Taeil:** Text me back!

—

**[3:24AM] Ten:** jesus christ taeil

**[3:25AM] Ten:** looks like someone didnt do his homework like he said he would !

Sleep was restless, and Taeil woke up around four and saw Ten’s messages but couldn’t be assed to reply. On Saturdays, Taeil usually did grocery shopping and worked on grading papers for an intro class he was assisting. He led discussions on Thursdays which mainly consisted of him listening to a bunch of arrogant freshmen argue about details that never mattered in the grand scheme of things because that was what they thought linguistics meant. In reality, it was just the opposite.

After tossing and turning for an hour without being able to fall asleep again, Taeil got out of bed, welcomed the light of mid morning, and wondered if maybe he should’ve gotten a pet instead of getting involved in this whole mess. But he knew too much about Ten not to be curious now.

**[7:21AM] Taeil:** What do you mean??

**[9:13AM] Ten:** boundaries, sweetie. i have a life

**[9:15AM] Taeil:** But you’re usually around at that time. I was worried!

**[9:20AM] Ten:** you dont have a lot of friends do you?

Curiosity was what got Taeil into his field of study. Even after four years of undergrad hell, he was still curious. He’d taken an introductory linguistics class alongside mandatory public speaking with some weird roundabout train of logic that if he understood the study of language better, he might become better with words. Four years later and he still got tongue-tied in a vast majority or public situations, but at least now he knew sentence structure rules more scientifically than anyone should ever need to know.

**[9:23AM] Taeil:** No! I don’t 

He could almost hear Ten sigh over the receiver. Taeil usually roped in his imagination before it wandered off to the dangerous realm of preconceptions. But sometimes, really late at night, Ten’s imagined voice would sneak into his dreams. It seemed like it would be quiet and low, so close to his ear it was basically in his brain.

**[10:01AM] Ten:** ok cutie. to MY standards we arent technically dating yet. 

**[10:01AM] Ten:** i dont even know if you’re a real person so cut me some slack. you don’t own me or my time…yet. 

**[10:02AM] Ten:** if we meet up that can change. we dont have to have sex!! just meet

**[10:06AM] Taeil:** But I want to.

**[10:09AM] Ten:** want to what??

**[10:11AM] Taeil:** Have sex

**[10:15AM] Ten:** …u are so strange

**[10:15AM] Ten:** but im starting to like that about you

Taeil rolled his eyes and sighed delicately, crossing his bare feet over his legs and leaning down into his comforter. He’d been getting dressed, but now he was back in bed in just his boxers and a t-shirt. Of course he was strange. They had already established this, but Ten’s reactions indicated that Taeil had somehow exceeded expectations. For whatever reason, Ten had time to oblige.

**[10:16AM] Ten:** lets just meet up and see how it goes

**[10:16AM] Ten:** i promise its ok if ur awkward

**[10:17AM] Ten:** but u seem more concerned about being awkward than having sex am i correct??

**[10:20AM] Taeil:** Probably

**[10:21AM] Ten:** so i can assume u have a nice body? ;)

**[10:25AM] Taeil:** Where did you get that from??

**[10:27AM] Ten:** u have more confidence in ur sex than ur words!

**[10:30AM] Taeil:** Theyre both low bars !

**[10:32AM] Ten:** lol just teasing! we’ll see ;)

So now they were here, making compromises. They were different than the compromises that had to have been made with Doyoung, though: it seemed that, to Ten, all Taeil had to be afraid of was himself. Ten was still shrouded in mystery, but his messages were honest and forward. He was surprisingly invested in Taeil’s perception of _him_ , as if he were somewhat scared to lose Taeil. But Ten was gorgeous, charming, and smart. Frankly, he had nothing to fear. 

So now Taeil was here, standing in front of the elevators in Ten’s apartment building, tracing the gold leafing on the doorframe as it wound its way around the elevator doors. 

—

The last time he felt this nervous was before his first linguistics final in freshman year of college. Emotions ran frantic during the first semester, before you started learning what to expect. After a while, things stopped fazing you, but the magic and passion of that first semester never really came back either. 

So it was a welcome feeling, the fluttering in the pit of his stomach. It was excitement: the thrill of not knowing how things were going to turn out but with the inherent, subconscious assumption that everything would be okay. 

Taeil’s hand shook as he pressed the 26th, top floor of the building. Ten was expecting him.

They had talked coolly all week. Taeil unwittingly revealed a bit about his professional life, to which Ten made the quick conclusion about how awkward could Taeil possibly be if he _studied_ language for a living? Sometimes it felt like studying it, though, just made things worse.

If anything, though, studying was something he could do. And he could present. Solace in his office gave him hours to prepare, and although work took him longer than the average bear, his marks seemed to put him ahead of most of his cohorts. And one nice thing about working slowly was that he never found himself without something to do. 

Riding up the elevator— that was being without something to do. That was exactly the kind of anxiety Taeil so carefully avoided. It was the anxiety that made physical sensations start cropping up: his stomach flipped in turbo, and his mouth went dry.

It was the thrill and the wait juxtaposed. It was excitement, and the challenge of accepting that he couldn’t do anything about it. His heart pounded right along, like two mallets beating against the inside of his body. 

It was like a rollercoaster but the whole ride was a continuous free fall. 

Taeil stood in the center of the shaft, staring up at the ascending numbers in a weak attempt to keep himself grounded.

Doyoung used to drag Taeil along to the church group’s social outings during the first few weeks of college. The free food and semblance of community seemed like compensation for having to pretend he knew anything about Christianity. But Taeil’s natural veil of awkwardness seemed to cloak the wall of ignorance between him and the other students, and Doyoung, sensing Taeil’s distress at the time, later taught him how to pray. 

Taeil kneeled down next to his nightstand and prayed when he remembered. He prayed for the poor little boy in middle school, he prayed for Taeyong and Yuta to do fine on their final presentations, he prayed for Doyoung to stop taking him to these inane youth group retreats. "God is forgiving and kind," Doyoung said, holding Taeil’s hands in his own. Doyoung said he had always known this in his heart and explained that it was the reason he’d stopped going to church with his parents all throughout middle school and high school because they disagreed. They believed God to be inherently wrathful. But the small, tight-knit LGBTQ Christian group in college was warm and welcoming, familiar with the underlying sting of shared exile. 

Last night, Taeil had prayed. It seemed like a strange thing to do before meeting up with someone for maybe-sex, but God would understand. Probably. 

His brain worked too fast to form coherent sentences, but God got the gist of it. He must’ve gotten garbled up messages like that every day.

Essentially, he asked for things to be okay. That Ten would be okay, and if for whatever reason it didn’t work out, they’d be okay. He asked for things not to be too scarring or difficult, and that he’d have the power to accept everything that happened as just another lesson in life. That he’d know that someday, he’d be somewhere else and be able to think about this and laugh. And that at least in the meantime he’d have the wisdom and clarity to accept this.

Taeil took a deep, shuddering breath. 

Ten’s door was at the end of the hall. Instead of pressing the doorbell, Taeil knocked, trembling and soft at first. 

There was no response. 

Taeil then rapped erratically, which was kind of a metaphor for how his life was going. He was either soft and anxious, or he moved without thinking. There was no in between.

_It’s me_ , Taeil could call out, but Ten wouldn’t recognize his voice. What would he say, anyway? _It’s me, your texting buddy_? _your strange friend_? _your—_

"Pumpkin!" Ten yelled, swinging open the door.

Taeil’s breath hitched when Ten appeared in the doorway, standing at eye level, long bangs swinging into his eyes and framing the curve of his face. 

He was stunning. 

"H—hi," Taeil breathed, wringing his hands in front of him, suddenly feeling strikingly average in comparison.

They stood for a moment, frozen in hypnosis. The black t-shirt and jeans Ten wore blurred in Taeil’s vision. His nose had a pretty, snooty curve, and his eyes seemed to pierce right through you. "Come in," Ten said with an unreadable voice, and Taeil shuffled inside, stepping out of his shoes.

Ten watched Taeil’s every move, and Taeil, stiff and warm, glanced back furtively. The door closed softly behind him just as Ten took a step forward. Taeil brought his feet together, sensing Ten inspect him. 

His heart was pounding again, pumping his blood right up to his ears so that it flushed across his face, hot and thick. And Ten’s breath seemed to follow it, fanning across Taeil’s nose as Ten reached behind him to lock the deadbolt and cage Taeil against the door in one smooth motion. The _clack_ of the lock felt heavy and permanent. 

"Your pictures don’t do you justice at all," Ten murmured, tilting his chin up toward Taeil so that their bottom lips bumped ever so slightly. Taeil shuddered, and Ten felt it, his hands coming to rest on Taeil’s waist in response. Taeil let his eyes flutter closed just as Ten leaned in, grazing Taeil’s bottom lip with his own softly before taking it between his lips and sucking.

And, like under a spell, Taeil sank against the door, his palms sticking to the wood for support. All of a sudden, the bones in his body seemed to disappear, leaving Taeil putty between Ten and the wall. And Ten, Ten was good— Ten took care of him, concentrating on Taeil’s lip, tugging and worrying at it while his thumbs rubbed little circles into Taeil’s sides. 

Taeil needed to do something, _fast_ , or else Ten would devour him. So he folded his top lip across Ten’s, swiping across it tentatively with his tongue.

Something in Ten snapped. He groaned low, shoving his tongue into Taeil’s mouth, and Taeil gasped and opened it eagerly to accept him. 

Heat was pooling in the pit of Taeil’s stomach. The way Ten moved against him felt so sensual and _hot_ , a slow pull between gentle and aggressive. Ten explored Taeil’s mouth forcefully as Taeil took shuddering breaths through his nose and let Ten take what he wanted. 

And Ten took. Ten took feverishly, meeting Taeil’s tongue and laving around it slowly, lapping at all the corners of Taeil’s mouth, toying with him until Taeil let out a long, filthy whine from the back of his throat that he’d been trying to hold in since Ten licked into him.

Ten pulled away from the kiss but caged Taeil against with both his arms now, his dark eyes staring into him. "Pretty boy," Ten said lowly, to which Taeil responded like magic with another gasp, blood rushing through him and setting his nerve endings alight. The corner of Ten’s lip curled up as his hands tightened around Taeil’s waist.

Ten kissed him again, harder and quicker this time, leaving Taeil following his lips for more. And Ten seemed to be grinning when he kissed Taeil again and again, hard and bruising, moving his hands to Taeil’s face to hold him still. 

"We should talk," Ten breathed against Taeil’s lips, and Taeil pushed forward gently into a sweet peck.

"Don’t want to," said Taeil, and Ten laughed, guiding them both out of the entryway and into an open living room which Taeil barely had time to take in before he found himself tumbling into Ten’s lap, spread across a black leather love seat. 

Ten spread his hands across Taeil’s thighs, pulling him in until their crotches brushed against each other. Taeil, already half hard in his pants, moaned unabashed and open, and Ten hummed approvingly. "Loud," Ten breathed against Taeil’s mouth. "And a pretty voice. I like it."

Taeil arched his back when Ten’s hands slid to Taeil’s lower back and his fingertips under the hem of Taeil’s jeans and briefs and _squeezed_. "Ten—" Taeil said breathlessly, and it took Ten a colossal effort to pull Taeil away by the belt loops.

"Talk, _now_ ," Ten said, and Taeil pushed a final kiss against Ten’s mouth and fell off his lap next to him, breathing hard. 

"What’s so important?" Taeil said a little peevishly. 

Ten seemed amused at Taeil’s eagerness. "I feel obligated to inform you I used to have a lot of sex," Ten stated, blunt. "I mean, I’ve tested and I’m negative for everything. But I felt like you should know."

Taeil tilted his head, breathing evened out a little. "What do you… do? Can I ask now?"

And Ten leaned forward into Taeil’s lips, tracing his jawline with his finger. "You know, you look so pretty when you ask permission," he said smoothly, and Taeil flushed and closed his eyes when Ten kissed him slow and tender. "Part pole-dancer, part bartender," Ten said against Taeil’s mouth. He felt comfortable flush against Taeil like this, warm. "An 'entertainer', I guess. I slept around."

Taeil, once again, felt dully inadequate as the boring academic with just a lot of unresolved urges. 

Sensing Taeil’s discomfort, Ten waved his hand. "It’s not a good line of work, don’t get into it. Basically a bunch of my friends wanted to leave because it got tiring over the years. But the contract wouldn’t let us for a while until my dad found out and filed a lawsuit, and now I’m here with a bunch of money and nothing to do."

"Retired," Taeil said smartly, and Ten laughed.

"You could say that." Ten pulled Taeil into his lap again and mouthed at the corner of his lips. "You know, for someone as inexperienced as you say you are, you sure kiss good."

Taeil pulled away and blinked. "Thanks," he said, and Ten giggled and patted his cheek.

"You’re cute," he said. "You seem surprised."

"I don’t get that a lot," Taeil replied, and Ten hummed and skimmed Taeil’s jeans again, actually unbuttoning the front of them this time and taking spectacularly long.

Taeil’s hips bucked when Ten palmed him over his briefs suddenly, pushing and rubbing in circles until his fingers found their way into Taeil’s underwear and ghosted over his skin. 

" _Ten_..!" Taeil breathed, and Ten laughed quietly against Taeil’s neck.

"Touch me too, baby boy," Ten said, and Taeil, flushing at the pet name, nodded and fumbled blindly at Ten’s pants, his ears hot with Ten’s heavy breathing. "That’s it," said Ten when Taeil brought his dick out of his boxers. "Just like that."

While Taeil muffled his whines into Ten’s shoulder, Ten seemed set on coaxing them out of him, jerking Taeil off with slow, long strokes that left Taeil keening for more. He felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, _god_ he was so turned on, especially with Ten guiding their dicks together and wrapping his hand around both of them. Ten was just as hard Taeil noted with a swell of pride, and he felt himself losing rhythm as he came close, his hand stuttering. When he tugged a bit hard, Ten bit into the crook of his neck and sucked a dark mark there. 

"Behave," he said in a low voice, thumbing Taeil’s slit anyway, and Taeil cried out. "Can you be good for me?"

Taeil nodded again, squeezing his eyes shut when Ten slid his hand down to his balls and played with them lazily between his fingers, watching Taeil intently for a reaction. And Taeil blinked his eyes open for only a moment and tensed, aroused at Ten’s piercing gaze. Usually, he hated being watched. This was different: Ten made him feel confident and wanted, made him feel like every inch of his skin was a treasure. "Yes, _yes_ , I’ll be good," Taeil babbled, and Ten hummed in approval, rutting forward when Taeil pressed into him harder. 

Taeil’s hips starting to jerk and Ten coaxed him on, whispering encouragements into his ear. "Come on, let go, come for me… I wanna see you," Ten mumbled, his lips brushing Taeil’s ear, and Taeil moaned brokenly as he went over the edge, his come covering both their hands and the bottom of his shirt. Taeil’s body spasmed, his thighs squeezing hard into Ten’s hips as he continued to rock in Ten’s lap, trying to slow his breathing down, and Ten, panting heavily at the image of Taeil coming in his lap, mumbled, "I wanna come on your face, can I?"

A full body shiver ran through Taeil, his cock still sensitive and twitching. He nodded feverishly and slipped out of Ten’s lap and onto his knees, his legs wobbly. "Please," whispered Taeil, looking up at Ten, and Ten groaned and thrusted forward into his own hand.

The tip of his cock slipped against Taeil’s cheek, and Taeil turned his head to lap at it delicately. " _Fuck_ ," Ten hissed, tensing and barely bucking forward so that his cock pushed at Taeil’s lips. "Look at you," he breathed, reaching a shaky hand out to stroke Taeil’s cheek. "I wanna fuck you so bad."

Taeil whimpered at that, just as Ten guided Taeil’s eyes closed with his thumb and came with a strangled shout. Come splattered across Taeil’s lips and nose and eyelashes, and he licked up what he could reach obediently, his own dick twitching in interest again when Ten, panting, thumbed Taeil’s lips. 

"You’re so good for me," Ten breathed in wonder, brushing Taeil’s bangs to the side gently. 

Taeil climbed back into Ten’s lap and kissed him, letting Ten marvel at the come on his face. "You’re mouthy," said Taeil quietly, and Ten laughed.

"I think you liked it," he said. "Look how fast you came." Taeil sniffed but didn’t deny it— Ten wasn’t wrong— and Ten pulled a tissue from the coffee table and wiped Taeil’s face. "Let’s go out for dinner. My treat."

—

Taeil was still in a daze as he found himself seated at the back of a swanky, dark little place, crowded on a Friday night, clad in a black turtleneck borrowed from Ten and some form-fitting jeans. Earlier that afternoon while Ten was changing, Taeil had composed himself a quick recollection of how he _thought_ the evening was going to go. He’d planned to run home for dinner, maybe give Doyoung a call and spill the entire fiasco, entertain Doyoung’s prying questions, open a bottle of cheap wine, and drink the whole thing to get him through grading the last half of his students’ final papers.

Instead he was here, staring as Ten chatted up the waiter into cracking open a nice bottle of champagne for the two of them, cozy in its own little ice bucket like a guest at their table. "What are we celebrating?" Taeil said when the waiter left, holding the wine glass by the stem awkwardly with both hands.

"Us," said Ten. He tipped his own glass to meet Taeil’s with a smile.

"We’re… a thing now?" said Taeil, and Ten laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and Taeil decided he liked it. Of course, there were a lot of different looks on Ten that Taeil decided he liked, but it seemed pointless to get peeved at the laughter because Ten was gonna be laughing at him a lot apparently whether or not he wanted him to. But it was a good look on Ten, relaxed in a way, honest and upfront like you did something he hadn’t expected. And if Taeil felt a little embarrassed, it was half a price to pay for seeing Ten so open like that. Even the way he clapped his hands together was pretty when he felt particularly delighted with Taeil’s responses. 

Doyoung’s question danced across Taeil’s mind for a moment. _Are you not looking for a long-term relationship?_ And as far as romance went, well— what did romance even mean? Because did wanting to please Ten to see his smile just as much as wanting to please him so he’d fuck Taeil nice and slow and let him come mean romance? Because if so, Taeil might already have fallen in love.

"I mean, I’ll be honest with you, that weekend you texted me like 74 times I was totally sleeping around," Ten said, swirling the champagne around in his glass. 

"It was like three texts," Taeil protested, and Ten shrugged.

"Yeah, I know— but people don’t really do that often, you know? Not with me at least," said Ten. He brightened a bit, grinning off somewhere at the memory. "It was a nice surprise, actually."

It was weird. Sometimes Doyoung could text Taeil 20 times a day, but then again Doyoung was usually the only person who ever texted him. "You have… a lot of friends?" Taeil asked tentatively, and Ten frowned in thought.

"A lot of connections, I’d say," he replied. "My old mates back from the job were friends, but we don’t really like to associate with each other anymore. Brings back sour memories, you know?"

Taeil did not know. His life had been more or less flat— nothing bitter, nothing sour, nothing memorably sweet. But he nodded anyway, wringing his hands. 

"Anyway, I wouldn’t do that now," Ten said, looking at Taeil with a bit of an unnerving expression. "That whole sleeping around thing. If you want to be exclusive, that is." His face was unreadable when he said quietly, "Say the word, and I’m yours."

Taeil smiled down to himself just as the food arrived, dragging on a little suspense as best as he could, but he already knew his choice inside. "I— I’d like that," he murmured, and Ten beamed. 

—

After dinner, they barely made it into the apartment before tumbling onto the love seat again, Taeil straddling Ten’s hips and hovering over his dick which was pressing into the front of his pants almost proudly. Ten had mouthed at Taeil’s neck languidly while Taeil attempted to keep his composure the whole way up on the elevator, but he gave himself a moment right before closing Ten’s front door to turn around and shove Ten toward the living room, laughing lightly at Ten’s surprised expression. 

Ten was deceptively strong, grabbing Taeil’s hips and with the help of gravity grinding his ass down against Ten’s dick. And Ten closed his eyes and relished in the feeling while Taeil panted, swiveling his ass around in little circles right up against him. "You look so good, babe," Ten said lowly, blinking open bleary eyes for a moment to stare at the way the dark, stretchy knit hugged Taeil’s arms and chest and neck.

If Taeil kept watching Ten look at him with that lazy, half-lidded expression, he’d come in his pants. So Taeil leaned down and buried his face in Ten’s neck and breathed in the smell of shampoo at his nape, gasping, "Fuck me Ten, please, fuck me—" and Ten’s grip in the back of Taeil’s shirt tightened.

" _Jesus_ ," said Ten, thrusting his hips forward jerkily, and Taeil yelped softly, the sound breaking almost into a sob when they dropped onto the couch again and he could almost feel Ten’s dick against his ass. "All right," Ten said, breathing in and heaving the both of them up. He laid Taeil onto the cushion next to him reluctantly, muscling Taeil’s squirming limbs into place with charmed little laughs. "If we’re gonna play, we need to set some rules."

It took all of Taeil’s willpower and then some to remind himself that this was what he came here for. He squeezed his eyes shut, and Ten seemed amused at the motion, petting Taeil’s fringe down. Ten was gentle. Ten guided him when he was too much, and Ten forgave him. "Okay," Taeil breathed, and Ten pressed a sweet kiss against Taeil’s cheek.

"That’s my good boy," said Ten, and Taeil shifted uncomfortably, narrowing his eyes at Ten, who looked suspiciously pleased with himself. "Safe words," Ten said, patting Taeil’s shoulder firmly. "I _will_ stop if you say stop, even if you’re delirious or don’t mean it or whatever. But you might encounter people later… who don’t," Ten said, his expression a little mellow. "Safe words are like, full stop. We stop everything. We talk about it." 

"Talk," repeated Taeil, stiffening despite himself.

"Or," said Ten, sensing Taeil’s reaction, "we don’t have to. At least not right then. We can sleep on it, then talk about it later. Com-mu-ni-ca-tion," Ten said, stroking Taeil’s hair. "And trust. The most important things."

"Okay," Taeil replied.

Ten put his hands on Taeil’s knees and looked at him. "This is important. Please use it. I need to know when I go too far. And same goes for you."

"Of course," said Taeil, and Ten breathed out. 

"I usually say 'red'," Ten said. "Like a stoplight. Can you try that?"

"'Red' for if it’s not okay," Taeil said, and Ten nodded. 

"Perfect," he said, cupping Taeil’s face in his hands like Taeil was the most important person in the world. "You learn fast, sweetheart."

Taeil laughed and surely flushed under the praise, but then Ten was kissing him again and enjoying his lips like a meal. Taeil let out a few breathless noises that he knew Ten liked when Ten’s fingers snuck under his sweater and traced across his lower back. He pressed little bruises into Taeil’s skin like mini-massages just above the hem of his jeans, then under his underwear, then right above his ass, pressing around his tailbone and making him squirm a little desperately, wanting Ten’s fingers at least against his rim. 

"I know," Ten murmured, and Taeil whimpered. "Let’s move to the bedroom. I want to fuck you properly."

And by the time they made it to Ten’s bedroom, Taeil was undoing his own jeans and stumbling over them toward the bed while Ten gave his ass a playful squeeze. Taeil tried tugging Ten down with him, but with some quick parry of hands, Ten had Taeil's wrists pinned down onto the bed and topped it all off with a quick kiss to the tip of Taeil's nose.

"Eager, aren’t we?" Ten mumbled cheekily, tugging Taeil's jeans off and rubbing his hands over Taeil’s legs and ankles greedily, leaving trails of fire wherever he touched until Taeil’s entire body felt red hot and trembling. 

Ten pushed Taeil's legs apart and kneeled between them, looming over Taeil and kneading his inner thighs, touching everywhere but his dick. And he took his time with this, watching Taeil glare back up at him with his eyes glazed over and lower lip caught between his teeth, his nostrils flaring as his heavy breaths forced their way out. 

Ten looked satisfied, almost entranced with this picture of Taeil before him, and that in itself made Taeil's dick twitch, his toes curling when Ten thumbed at the tip of his dick noncommittally. "Turn around for me baby," Ten murmured. "I need you relaxed."

At this point Taeil had no idea what he was answering to, he was just breathing, " _Yes_ ," as some mix of submission and arousal and submission-induced-arousal as he turned onto his stomach, grabbed a pillow, and curled his legs under himself shakily while Ten spread his ass cheeks apart. He felt vulnerable. It felt _obscene_. And yet he still wanted Ten to eat him out someday, to finger him rough, to make him beg to be fucked.

Ten propped his hand against Taeil's perineum before tracing his entrance slowly with his finger, wet and cold with lube. And Taeil sucked in a breath, his ass twitching in response until Ten massaged the space around his entrance with one hand and stroked his lower back with the other, making a soothing humming noise. "Relax, baby," Ten said, and Taeil whined into the pillow, wanting to follow directions, to be good for Ten. 

And Ten took his goddamn time again, stretching Taeil’s rim open with his finger gently and wiggling his finger as he pressed inward. Taeil found his breath heaving in and out as Ten pushed all the way in slow and continuous, like trying to open something very fragile. 

The intrusion felt more sore than sharply painful; Taeil’s walls throbbed for a little while as Ten felt around inside him and thrusted in and out halfway while working on Taeil’s rim with another finger. He was dextrous, and when Taeil sucked in a sharp breath from being stretched, Ten curled his finger inside Taeil and brushed against his prostate.

Taeil moaned high and loud, a shudder racking through his whole body and precome spurting out of his dick. It felt incredible; it’d been a while since he’d been fingered by another person so thoroughly— maybe the first time actually, since with Doyoung they usually just prepped and fucked real quick. Ten took his time even though Taeil could feel Ten's dick hard and brushing against his thigh, and by the time Taeil came down again Ten was two fingers deep, stretching him as much as possible while Taeil was convulsing around him, delirious. 

And some part of his ass must _know_ , because as Ten started scissoring his fingers to make room for the third, Taeil's dick twitched, shooting heat through his body the wider Ten opened him up. It accompanied the stretch like a deep, warm pleasure beneath the slight throbbing, making the pain itself even kind of hot. Ten twisted his fingers in a circle, curling them so that they brushed Taeil's prostate slow and relentless, and Taeil had to turn his face into the pillow sharply to muffle his moans. Nothing he'd ever felt before compared; it was like having an orgasm every time Ten prodded his prostate and then coming down to being right on the edge again, rendering him a mess of neverending whines and moans and whimpers somewhere between faint and totally aware of how intent Ten was on teasing him mercilessly, on tiring him delirious so he could fuck him hard and it would feel good.

"Look at you," Ten whispered, peering down at his three fingers in Taeil's ass, and Taeil flushed red, his bent legs trembling under him even when Ten paused just to admire the view. He felt hot under Ten's gaze, the scrutiny both embarrassing and keenly delicious, knowing he was wanted. "You take my fingers so nicely."

Taeil bit his lip and collapsed onto his forearms so that his ass was in the air, his knees slipping against the comforter and legs spreading for more as Ten pushed him down.

"You're being so good," Ten said again, tracing Taeil's balls, frustratingly close to his dick which Ten could no doubt notice was dripping all over the sheets. "Trying so hard not to come until I tell you."

Taeil nodded frantically at this, his head dropping down between his shoulders. "It's... hard," he breathed, and Ten laughed quietly, outlining the space around Taeil's prostate with the fingers he had inside Taeil, still fucking him slow and slick and precise.

Taeil gasped and twitched violently when Ten pressed his middle finger down right against it, his legs tensing to hold him up. He barely felt Ten's pinky slipping into him, sliding right up alongside his other fingers. "Just a little more baby," Ten said, his voice incredibly affectionate. Taeil blushed at how close it felt, his heart quivering. The cold lube whenever Ten added some was more jarring than the stretch at this point, and Taeil felt himself rocking back to meet Ten's fingers, chasing them to temper the urge to touch himself— he’d come almost instantly with how hard he was. "That's right," said Ten breathily, his voice low and strained as he stilled his hand and watched Taeil sway and shudder desperately with tiny little moans into the pillow. "Fuck yourself on my fingers."

Taeil keened, arching his back and Ten pressed in deep past the knuckle, his thumb rubbing the taut space above Taeil's entrance. The plunge felt different than when he teased Taeil's prostate— it felt warm and whole and steady and Taeil just wanted Ten to hold there forever, whimpering when Ten pulled out only to carefully press in again.

"You like that?" said Ten, and Taeil nodded, hair matted to his forehead and lips bitten raw. "You like being filled up?"

"Yes, _yes_ ," Taeil pleaded hoarsely, almost yelling. "Ten, please, please."

Ten groaned in response, pulling his hand out suddenly after a few thrusts, leaving Taeil's asshole wet and messy and clenching around air. Taeil heaved in a breath given a break as Ten ripped open a condom and rolled it on himself quickly before plunging his left hand into Taeil like keeping a seat warm while slicking up his own cock with his right. "Turn around," said Ten, his voice tense as if he could barely contain himself to spew out any more commands or praise. 

Taeil scrambled and twisted around Ten's hand, landing on his back to look for the first time in a while at a shirtless Ten, muscles sweaty and lean and defined in the dim light. Ten stared back at Taeil with lidded eyes as Taeil slowly moved the pillow underneath his tailbone, not breaking eye contact while remaining connected via Ten’s hand, which was stroking Taeil’s insides softly and making quiet _squelch_ noises and displacing the excess lube so that it dripped out of Taeil and down his ass. 

Ten only pulled out to push Taeil's thighs back toward his chest with wet hands, folding him in half and leaning down to kiss Taeil with more tongue than lips, and Taeil opened up for him and twisted their tongues together between their mouths. Ten's dick hung in front of Taeil's entrance, bobbing against his ass erotically. And Ten breathed heavy as he guided it in, swallowing Taeil's gasps and half just giving up, breathing into each other's mouths with the intensity of it. 

Tears ran tracks down the sides of Taeil's face from arousal, but it didn't seem to alarm Ten. "You okay?" he asked, and Taeil nodded. Ten was thick and the stretch was continuous and the fit was tight, giving Taeil no room to adjust or clench around him. He felt frozen in place, wrapped around Ten at the mercy of his dick, and as his walls and prostate hugged it, he wiggled the rest of his body around fruitlessly, searching for more stimulation, more focused pressure, more like the punctuated thrusts when Ten finger-fucked him. Ten rolled his hips in response, making Taeil let out a choked whine.

"Move," Taeil gasped, wanting to feel Ten's hips snapping against his ass and his dick sliding in and out of him again until he got used to how full it felt when Ten buried himself to the hilt.

Ten rubbed Taeil's thigh reassuringly in response and thrust shallowly at first, gyrating his hips in a circle and making them both moan a little desperately. The pressure against his prostate was good but not enough, keeping Taeil right on edge, alert and in a bit of a frenzy. He curled himself up to grab at Ten’s shoulders, anything to hold onto and ground him as Ten fucked him harder, thrusting in at different angles and breathing in Taeil’s neck. "God, you feel so good," Ten said, and Taeil sobbed, the praise sending a pulse through him which only made him more desperate for release.

Taeil’s blunt nails raked sweaty, red tracks across Ten’s back as Ten pushed Taeil’s hips further toward his face, fucking up into him. There, Taeil felt the tip of his dick scrape against his prostate, and with a loud gasp, Taeil arched his back and clenched his hands around nothing, tensing hard to keep from touching himself. It was as if the warm knot in his lower stomach jerked itself _tight_ every time Ten aimed there, and he picked up the pace, barely giving Taeil time to come down again before fucking into him again, prodding at his prostate on his way to going balls deep over and over again. The combined stimulation from Ten’s quick, intense thrusts filling him and sliding against his walls and prostate had Taeil letting out one long, loud wail punctuated with a few choked out sobs as Ten leaned in and devoured the sound and all his breath.

"Do you wanna come?" Ten said, right up against Taeil’s lips, and Taeil nodded deliriously until Ten stilled him with a harsh, possessive kiss. "Come for me baby, show me how good it feels."

Ten adjusted his hips and snapped up right into Taeil’s prostate, pressing in instead of sliding past, and Taeil came untouched with a scream. His come spurted out erratically as his thighs clenched around Ten’s torso, toes pointed and every muscle in his body pulled taut with the pleasure that coursed through him. His head thrashed from side to side and his hips stuttered and convulsed around Ten’s dick, and Taeil saw black then white as Ten fucked him through it, faintly registering Ten’s groan at the sight of Taeil coming apart at the seams. "Ten, _Ten_ ," Taeil gasped, still shaking as his orgasm pushed its last coils through him. "God, _fuck_ , Ten, it feels so good, oh god," Taeil whimpered, clenching keenly when Ten pulled out and slid back in at an irregular rhythm.

Ten’s own moans mingled with Taeil’s loud breaths in the air and gained volume until one last, deep thrust, and he pulled Taeil to him as he reached his own orgasm, clasping Taeil’s smooth skin in his hands and sliding against the semen staining his abdomen. Ten’s hips stuttered as he moaned into Taeil’s neck, and Taeil grew slack with the attention, weakening until he was putty in Ten’s arms and Ten was squeezing every inch of him as if trying to hold him impossibly closer as he came long and hard. 

It took them a while to come down. They breathed in tandem, chests rising and falling to meet each other while Ten, though spent, propped himself up to look down at Taeil framed in a picturesque display of wrinkled and dirty sheets, bruises and hickeys littering his thighs and neck, come streaked across his torso. 

Through weak eyes and vision fogged with sleepiness, Taeil eyed Ten who looked just as wrecked, his eyes tired but bright with adoration. When Ten shifted, Taeil still felt him inside him, though his asshole at this point was spent and nearly numb. Ten pulled out and tied his condom, throwing it in the waste bin near the nightstand and flopping down onto the sheets. "Baby," he murmured, curling up against Taeil’s side and tracing a pattern into his arm. "You did so well."

Taeil hummed and his cheeks flushed while the rest of his body began to register the air cold against his sweat-covered skin. The last thing he remembered was Ten throwing a satin comforter over both of them before drifting off to sleep.

—

He woke up to the same dim light and the airy, surprisingly un-sore feeling of Ten wiping him down with a warm cloth. "Ten," Taeil tried to say, but it came out all garbled as if half dipped in sleep.

"Shh, it’s only 1AM," Ten said, turning Taeil over gently. Taeil complied, letting Ten maneuver his limp body with half a thought to push back against him out of spite. "Go back to sleep."

"’s cold," Taeil mumbled.

"I just rewetted it, any hotter and it would burn your skin," Ten replied, spreading the washcloth into a square on Taeil’s lower back and pressing down, making sure it covered every dip in Taeil’s back. Taeil moaned lightly in response. "Good boy," said Ten, brushing Taeil’s hair back from his forehead.

"I meant… it’s cold here," said Taeil, turning toward Ten with bleary eyes. "Come to sleep."

Ten paused for a moment, his expression blurry and unreadable. Then, he broke into an affectionate smile that looked almost grateful, like a scene on a bridge in the sunset. The dim light accentuated the valleys of his face and the faintest hints of creases, soft and filled with stories. "Of course, it’s _my_ bed, dummy," said Ten. "I was just showering and figured I'd clean you up, too."

Taeil smiled, not entirely comprehending the situation but satisfied with this response and fell asleep again.

The next time he woke up was to daylight and Ten beside him, propped up on a pillow and gazing down at Taeil with a quilt covering his lower half and a comic book open on his hip. Ten seemed in a daze, his expression unchanging even as Taeil smiled tentatively up at him amid the repetitive, soothing motion of Ten stroking his hair. 

The soreness was setting in. It throbbed in his ass and seeped into the backs of his thighs, urgent even when he was lying down. Taeil winced and hissed as he rolled gingerly onto his back, and Ten responded then, stretching his arm up with a throaty morning groan. "It’ll hurt for a few," he said loosely. "Hope you don’t have a presentation or something."

Taeil laughed a little strained, rubbing his lower back with his knuckles. The professor usually dominated lecture, and there was a rolling chair in the discussion room. Plus, he didn’t have discussion until Thursday. "How long have you been awake?" he rasped, coughing at the sound of his weak voice.

"Not long," Ten said with a shrug. It was cloudy but bright; Ten’s room was walled with windows that shined in their clarity, and a bit of rain seemed to be drying on the glass panels against the overcast sky. "It looks better during the day," Ten said, noticing Taeil’s gaze scrutinizing the room. The decorations were sparse if existent at all; you could barely pick up Ten’s aesthetic from his decor other than that he seemed to be either incredibly spartan or incredibly wary about how much of himself he revealed to the people he invited in here. Taeil guessed the latter. 

"It seems… empty," said Taeil. "At night," he added quickly. He was never good at sugar-coating things. His tone was soft, but then again, it always was.

"Yeah, well," said Ten. "That’s why I have people over."

Taeil glanced at Ten, who seemed to be avoiding his gaze. It took Taeil a big, heavy sigh to heave himself up and lope his arms around Ten’s neck; Ten was sitting frustratingly out of reach, so Taeil tugged him clumsily the long way down, nipping at various parts of his face before finding his lips and latching on. Ten let out a surprised noise, reacting quickly but kissing back without feeling at first despite it being a good kiss. But Taeil was insistent and threaded his fingers into Ten’s hair and massaged his head gently, poking at Ten’s tongue with his own until Ten laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. They were tangled together in unmatched quilts and fitted sheets tugged out from under the mattress, their clammy morning skin tugging at each other insistent and a little bit painful. They were a mess of things in the otherwise neat, sparse room. 

He scooped Taeil into his arms again, lying over him and looking down at him when Taeil pulled away with a huff. "Wanna go out for breakfast?" Ten said with a grin before sucking on Taeil’s lower lip sweetly, rubbing it between his teeth. A warm relief spread through Taeil’s skin; though Ten smiled often, watching his raw, hazy mood light up into genuine happiness made it even better.

"Do you ever cook?" Taeil mumbled, and Ten shook his head.

"Doesn’t taste good when I know what’s in it," said Ten. "I like surprises."

Taeil laughed lightly as Ten tickled his jawline with kisses. "I’m not that great, but I’ll pick up some groceries and we can cook next time."

Ten blinked down at Taeil for a moment and they shared a confused little gaze, Taeil wondering why Ten was confused until Ten dove in for another kiss, hard and thorough with Ten canvassing the inside of Taeil’s mouth efficiently once over, as if claiming him. Ten then propped himself up against Taeil’s chest before falling face first into his neck, breathing in like his life depended on it. "You’re too good to me, Taeil," Ten murmured.

It was one of the only times Ten had used his name when at other times, it would’ve been a pet name, like sweetheart or kitten. Taeil didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing and instead reached up a hand awkwardly to pet Ten’s hair and the back of his shoulder, which eventually became a natural motion.

—

They ended up picking up breakfast instead from a local cafe and taking it home because Taeil’s limp was too noticeable. They ate out of styrofoam boxes and little plastic wrappers, jarring in the marbled dining room but very characteristic of Ten. When Taeil gathered up his clothes to head home to a stack of papers waiting to be graded, Ten pleaded, "Stay," softly, looking small and a little pathetic sitting cross-legged on a bed that was almost comically oversized in the morning light. 

The image lingered with Taeil the whole way home, even as he stumbled down the bus aisle and struggled to avoid eye contact with the other passengers. It wasn't quite haunting but a few notches below that, like a mild discomfort or a bug that wouldn't leave you alone. It wasn't until that Monday when Ten's next communication, a text, finally dispelled the image like magic. Taeil didn't ponder the hows and whys of it too long.

**[10:13AM] Ten:** so how was the sex

Taeil grinned in the dim lecture hall as the professor opened on Chaucer. The text was intro-level for the western canon, which was extracurricular for most undergrads but still deigned to be introduced in any general linguistics course. 

Ten asked bluntly, clumsy and almost awkward as if it were something he couldn't have asked in person last time. Taeil was beginning to pick up on the subtleties of Ten's tone, and he passed a fair amount of time wondering how much of it was calculated, how much of it genuine, and how much it really mattered. After all, they were all still valid sides of the same Ten. 

**[10:16AM] Taeil:** Good. Great actually. Amazing

**[10:20AM] Ten:** ;) good. 

**[11:03AM] Ten:** you know that was super vanilla

**[11:16AM] Taeil:** So what are you implying?

**[11:20AM] Ten:** im implying theres more where that came from if ur interested ;)

**[11:31AM] Taeil:** Of course I am. I told you it was good

**[11:36AM] Ten:** so ur being sassy with me?

**[11:38AM] Taeil:** so what if I am?

**[11:51AM] Ten:** i’ll have 2 punish u then

**[11:55AM] Taeil:** Id like that

—

Taeil let the kids out of discussion ten minutes early on Friday so he could make it to Ten’s place before rush hour. It was a little weird sitting on the bus with his worn out laptop bag on his lap, gazing out the window with a straight face and thinking about how resisting the urge to touch himself for the entire week would make him _ripe_ , good for Ten, so he could come over and over again. Taeil had always been described as straight-faced, if not a little blank, like he didn’t know what was going on. That was only sometimes. Most of the time he was well aware but couldn’t formulate an opinion about it strong enough to warrant expression. And one thing that never came naturally to him was lying, even insomuch as faking some sort of physical or facial response. 

Ten, on the other hand, was full of secrets. Not that this behavior was exclusive to Taeil; Ten seemed the type to exude warmth while keeping virtually everyone at arm’s length. If Taeil had to guess, Ten may even have revealed parts of himself more quickly than with past encounters: hinting at a promiscuous past if only out of obligation toward Taeil’s safety, letting Taeil stay the night only to unintentionally reveal the pathetic, lonely state of his apartment in the daytime.

Ten watched him often. Most likely, Ten had picked up on this. Ten didn’t mind it, or maybe even liked it. 

When Taeil rang the doorbell, silence delayed the time a bit, then a crash of something in the apartment. Ten appeared in the doorway shirtless with a pair of sweatpants rolled loosely around his hips, hair fluffed all to one side of his head. "You’re early," he said, a little breathless.

"Please put on some clothes," Taeil instructed while unabashedly staring, and Ten’s delighted little laugh, scratchy and high-pitched, fluttered in the depths of his heart. 

"But you’re having so much fun," Ten said, shrugging his shoulders playfully, his lithe muscles all flexing with the motion. "Who am I to deny you that?"

"We’re going grocery shopping," Taeil announced. "So get dressed."

Ten raised his eyebrows, which, despite his dropped smile, still felt warm and cozy. He was letting his walls down little by little around Taeil and was no doubt aware he was doing it, which meant he was getting comfortable with the idea. Making a friend, Taeil realized, was not something he’d experienced in a long time. And despite the overt sexual tones coloring their relationship, it was still at its core a dance of push and pull, of revealing all the little parts of yourself whether planned or unplanned, and gauging the reaction. It was mistakes and mending, endless do-overs, taking for granted the fact that you could try again until one day you couldn’t. But in the moment of things, when you were exploring each other, the present was all that mattered.

"You don’t lie," Ten said mildly, not opposed to the idea.

"I can’t," said Taeil, making his way inside and settling on a single sofa in the living room. "I keep my promises."

Ten whistled as he went into the back hallway toward his room. A moment later, he appeared with a white undershirt and a plaid button down draped over himself. "I better step up my game, too, then."

Taeil laughed a little unintentionally, just content. "I thought about bringing the ingredients over but figured I’d let you pay and treat you to the whole experience."

Ten barked out a laugh, throwing his head back and nudging Taeil with his hip. "Be my guest then."

They went to one of those overpriced grocery store franchises in Ten’s overpriced area of town, but Ten could afford it. Taeil had to continually remind himself, when he felt so inclined, that this was only their second time meeting, but something about the texting made it all too easy to regurgitate personal information while skipping over the small talk. It was simultaneously less personal and more personal, and meeting Ten in person subsequently felt both closer and more distant at the same time.

"Okay, we should get the rice cakes last because they’re in the fridge or frozen section, which is always in the back," Taeil said, guiding Ten by the hand.

"You seem to know a lot about this," said Ten, and Taeil looked back at him dumbfounded.

"I think it’s you who doesn’t!" Taeil replied, and Ten shrugged, surprised.

"But you’ve never been to this grocery store…?"

"Most are the same, you just follow the signs and they always put the necessities like eggs and milk in the back."

Ten tilted his head cutely at this and seemed to ponder it for a while as they snaked through the aisles, Taeil pretending to be looking for things so that he could lead Ten to things that he might find amusing, like how you could buy fresh coffee beans and grind them right at the store, or watching the workers slice and weigh the deli meats. "They even sell pre-cooked whole chickens here," Ten marveled, waving his hand under the heat lamps.

Taeil laughed. "An idea for next time we’re too lazy to cook," and Ten wrapped his free hand around Taeil’s waist in response, tugging him in unceremoniously. A pattern was starting to emerge from these sudden displays of affection, but Taeil was consciously resisting thinking about it, almost afraid of discerning the answer. 

The store clerks seemed temporal and refrained from making cheeky comments in this neck of the woods, unlike the aunties Taeil had grown up overhearing while accompanying his mother to the grocery store as a kid. Then again, without their gossip affirming his internalized homophobia, he wouldn’t have met Ten through questionable means, so everything did turn out okay in the end. It all came back to decisions and circumstances and that weird butterfly effect that established that if he hadn’t made that one particular choice he did, wearing yellow Converses to school one time in eighth grade, everything would be different now. 

He’d been looking forward to this all week, which was already unfamiliar. Maybe it was the physiological anticipation of good sex, or maybe the adrenaline rush from the thrill of doing something so uncharacteristic in secret. Over the course of a few weeks, life had gone from unbearably stagnant to rather pleasant. He’d made that first reply to Ten because it was easier falling out with someone you just met in case things didn’t go well. Taeil hadn’t thought about what to do in case things _did_ go well.

Ten was surprisingly concentrated when he worked. He even looked up _tteokbokki_ Youtube videos on an iPad he had propped up against the toaster. He followed no recipe but picked up unfamiliar techniques from watching videos first, his motions appearing haphazard and unorthodox but were actually quite resourceful if you thought about it. Taeil found himself watching Ten more than working with him, distracted by the way Ten's lips went thin when he focused and the one prominent vein running up his forearm. Taeil was struck with the sudden urge to lick it but also to kiss Ten on the cheek and hold his hand while they lounged on the couch and channel surfed and ate dinner out of the pot. He wouldn’t mind Ten bidding him goodbye every morning as he trudged to lecture or listening to him practice presentations or waking up at 5AM and for whatever reason Taeil would be awake too, and they would fuck tiredly because it felt good and they _could_ , even if it hurt a little still from the night before. 

"I thought you came here to learn about sex," Ten said suddenly, stirring the _tteokbokki_ with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. One side of his mouth was twisted up into a playful, sardonic grin because he’d caught Taeil staring into space but also conveniently right at his arm. His expression was kind of hot.

"What?" said Taeil, not because he didn’t hear what Ten said, but because it seemed almost too relevant to his stream of conscience.

Ten laughed. "Well, you just took me grocery shopping, and now we’re cooking together, and it all seems rather domestic, don’t you think?"

"Um," Taeil said with a sudden urge to look away. "It’s fun. Unless you mind…?"

"Of course not, babe," said Ten, and Taeil’s ears went warm. "It _is_ fun."

"Then there’s nothing wrong with it, right?" Taeil replied. "As friends."

Ten said nothing and stared down at the saucepan as it began to bubble, and Taeil felt like he’d missed something. "Cross-dressing," Ten said loudly, an awkward, fumbled transition, "is based on the idea that feminization is inherently submissive."

Taeil recovered quickly, surprising even himself, and hit Ten’s wrist lightly with a clean spoon. "No sex until after dinner," he said, and Ten laughed, easing the tension a bit. 

"I’m just _informing_ you," said Ten. "Think of this as the lecture, and during lab you can show me what you’ve learned," he added with a wink, and Taeil jumped, trying to remain indignant when in reality Ten had his heart pounding at even that cheesy of a line. "Anyway, modern sociology proves that women are _not_ any more inherently submissive than men, but what can you do. Boys-in-skirts is still hot, for whatever reason."

They emptied the _tteokbokki_ into a big, shallow pasta bowl and set two places at the table all proper like a true dinner date, leaving Taeil feeling slightly disappointed with it for no particular reason.

"Anyway, I bought you a skirt," Ten mentioned with a spoon still stuck between his lips as he leaned over and helped himself to the little pickled side dishes they’d picked up from the ready to eat aisle. "If you’re up to it."

Taeil’s stomach seemed to do a backflip right onto his groin, punching him abruptly in the pelvis. " _Yes_ ," he gasped, pressing his legs together and clasping his hands over his lap, and Ten did nothing to hide his groan and his satisfied little smile. 

Once they made it to Ten’s room, there was no coming back. Taeil knew this, despite Ten claiming they were just going to "try it on" to see how it fit. The leftover sauce was going to get stuck to the dishes, which meant Taeil would have to scrub all the grime off tomorrow morning, but he couldn’t be assed to care. 

"How much was this?" Taeil said, stroking the hem of the pleated skirt Ten had laid out on the bed for him. 

Ten sat down next to it and leaned over, resting his elbows on his knees. "Not much, don’t worry," he said with a laugh. "I don’t plan on it surviving the night. I want to fuck you while you’re wearing it, anyway."

Heat pooled in Taeil’s belly again as he matched Ten’s stare and dropped his pants, bunching the skirt in his hands. His eyes never left Ten’s, even as he pointed his toes and slid the fabric up his legs, and Ten watched carefully, licking his lips at the slight bulge in Taeil’s briefs. 

"Pretty," Ten breathed, his voice low, and Taeil fumbled with the zipper and latch on the back until Ten stood up and wrapped his arms around Taeil to help. They faced each other, and Ten covered Taeil’s hands with his own and breathed down Taeil’s neck for a moment before leaving kisses up his jaw and rocking his hips forward into Taeil’s. 

Taeil moaned heavily over the sound of the latch clicking into place. Ten’s hands went from impossibly gentle to rough and possessive in the blink of an eye, rubbing circles into where the hem of the skirt met the skin of Taeil’s thighs and then slipping his hands under it to grope at Taeil’s ass.

"God, you make me crazy," Ten said, pushing Taeil’s hips toward his, and it was all Taeil could do to hang on for dear life. He wrapped his arms around Ten’s neck and tangled his legs with Ten’s, falling on top of him onto the bed and going in for a bruising, desperate kiss. "Feisty today, aren’t we?" Ten said, but it was clear he was affected, too, his dick almost too loose in his baggy sweatpants and standing up proudly against Taeil’s inner thigh. 

The skirt fanned out across Taeil’s thighs, which flexed under the scrutiny. Ten pressed into the skin under his fingertips while Taeil watched, mesmerized, as Ten’s fingers moved around under the fabric. He jumped when they brushed his crotch, and he looked up to Ten smirking at him. It was hot like this, Ten getting off to feeling around for him, leaving most of it to his imagination, even though he’d seen Taeil naked and splayed out for him already.

It was undoubtedly messier. There was lube everywhere, all over Taeil’s inner thighs and ass and balls and perineum area, and his briefs had been thrown somewhere across the bed a while ago, but it was impossibly erotic, not unlike how he wanted Ten to eat him out and come on his face. He felt exposed and wet for Ten, because even though the skirt hid everything from view, Ten felt around over and over again with his fingers, as if committing every inch under the skirt to memory. Soon, Taeil was rocking into Ten’s hand as Ten jerked him off sloppily and left wet kisses all over Taeil’s neck, holding Taeil upright by his waist. Ten palmed at Taeil’s dick and thumbed the underside while his fingers traced the way to his asshole, which was busy clenching and parting ever since Ten had coated the inside with lube and his finger and then left Taeil empty while busying himself with his dick instead. 

Taeil squeezed his eyes shut and rested his chin on Ten’s shoulder, concentrating on Ten’s breath tickling the shell of his ear. "Fuck yourself on me," Ten mumbled, tracing Taeil’s arm and then lacing their fingers together for a moment gently before guiding Taeil’s hand around the back of his ass and to Ten’s dick. 

Taeil wanted it. He wanted it so bad, whining as Ten prepped him and spread him open while Taeil jerked Ten’s dick weakly, and it took Ten _tsk_ ing in his ear and holding his ass up with his hand to keep Taeil from rubbing down on Ten’s dick before Ten was done prepping him. 

"You’re so desperate for it, baby," Ten said while pressing into Taeil’s walls, "So eager to ride me."

" _Yes_ , give— give me," Taeil wailed a little incoherently, grasping at Ten’s back and balling his hands into fists.

Ten released a shuddering breath at Taeil’s plea, finally _finally_ pulling his fingers out and helping Taeil guide him in, his dick blindly sliding around Taeil’s entrance before finding it, which only made Taeil even more impatient, even more aroused. 

The motion of Ten entering him seemed to force the breath right out of Taeil, like a syringe. Fingers were, like, a comfortable threshold of fullness, while Ten’s dick always seemed to stretch him a little beyond his limit, but that was part of what made it so hot. They stared at each other for a while, neither moving except for the deep, rhythmic heaving of their chests. 

Ten always looked at Taeil with these expressions, like he was treasured and loved and precious. It was probably just inherent in Ten’s face, but that might’ve been why he attracted so many men or women: he had this gaze that he probably gave to everyone but looked like it was just for you. Taeil shifted experimentally, gasping when Ten grazed his prostate and moving his hand under his skirt to touch himself. Ten did nothing to stop him, instead following Taeil’s hand with his gaze as it moved underneath the skirt back and forth and licking his lips.

Taeil flexed his thighs and, trembling with effort, rolled up and forward, slowly fucking himself down on Ten, and Ten hissed and gripped at Taeil’s thighs, groping his skin encouragingly. "Keep going, babe, you’re doing so well," Ten said, and Taeil whimpered, clenching around Ten unintentionally. This drew another growl out of Ten, who bucked his hips up and pushed his dick through the oppressive heat.

Desperate to come, Taeil flicked his hand across his dick quickly, forming an erotic image underneath a pleated, girlish skirt, and soon Ten joined him after bouncing Taeil on his lap a few times. "I’m close," Taeil gasped, tensing his muscles when Ten pulled out and aligned their dicks, stroking them together.

"Come on, make a mess for me, baby boy," Ten whispered, kissing Taeil hard as Taeil thrust forward with a cry, trapping their dicks between their stomachs. 

"I’m— I’m coming, I’m coming," Taeil panted out against Ten’s mouth, digging his knees into Ten’s hips as he arched his back and spurted all over the inside of the skirt. Ten slowed his hand down, milking Taeil out with tight, long pulls as Taeil kept rolling his body against him and shuddering with the intensity of his orgasm. Ten came with a groan right as Taeil was coming down, and he felt Ten’s cock twitch against his while Ten grabbed his ass and squeezed hard. Taeil moaned weakly into Ten’s mouth while Ten did likewise but louder, their voices making a dissonant, erotic little chord. 

Ten sagged against the pillow as they came down together, his voice still holding some weight even as he panted, and Taeil slumped against his chest completely wrecked, from the soiled skirt to the come streaking their stomachs to the red marks on his ass and thighs.

As the sweat dried into a sticky sheen, Taeil pulled back to look at Ten again, who gave him a lazy smile in return and tucked a chunk of hair behind Taeil’s ear. "I love messing you up like this," he said quietly, and Taeil’s ass throbbed as if reminding him not to fuck again this soon, even if his hormones said yes.

So instead, he pressed sweet kisses to Ten’s lips, and Ten responded just as gentle, tracing small shapes into Taeil’s thighs as if they weren’t covered in come and sweat from just having ridden Ten’s cock in a skirt and loving every moment of it.

After a while, Ten eased out from under Taeil and set him down slightly propped up. "Don’t fall asleep just yet, I’m getting us some water," Ten said, and Taeil nodded blearily, watching Ten unclasp the skirt and slide it down his legs carefully. 

Ten hummed as he moved around the apartment, and it was nice just knowing he was _there_. Whether or not Ten intended that was debatable, but Taeil was starting to think Ten hated being alone more than he let on.

The sheets weren’t dirty enough to have to be stripped, and Taeil was tired but not too tired to not take a shower and not let Ten eat him out and suck on his ass in there. And even if his orgasm was dry and weak with just a bit of tremble to his legs, it was still good enough to make him cry out Ten’s name and slap at the tile wall as his moans echoed around the bathroom. He felt completely milked and empty afterward as he sank into Ten’s arms and let him wash his back and shampoo his hair. 

Ten liked watching him weak-kneed but never let him fall. He always caught Taeil before he was in any real danger and rubbed his sides and stumbled with him until he was steady on his feet again or they both fell onto the bed, clean and dry and naked with their tongues in each other’s mouths and wet hair still dripping into their eyes. 

—

Taeil woke up before Ten this time and his immediate thought was how he didn’t want to leave, ever. Not that there was anything bad about his regular life at home, though having something would almost give him the adrenaline needed to grind through it. It was just that being here felt normal, safe, and there was no reason to have to go. It just didn’t make sense. 

He pressed a soft kiss to the corner of Ten’s mouth, and Ten tensed up for a moment before his arms, registering that it was Taeil, tightened around him and he kissed back. 

Taeil was both afraid and exhilarated: afraid because the kisses were starting to lack that frenzied, intense flavor of lust they had at the beginning, and exhilarated with a different kind of intensity, the kind that made you want to dance softly on the edge and press yourself impossibly close at the same time, that made your heart pound in your chest at a mere touch of lips, the kind that made you keenly aware of their every reaction to you that passed under their skin. Ten sucked at Taeil’s upper lip dryly and lazily and rested his hand on Taeil’s waist not hard but firm, not exactly permitting him to go but confident that he wouldn’t leave.

And he was absolutely right. Taeil breathed in deep and framed Ten’s face in his hands, lifting his shoulders and arching his back so that Ten could hold him closer and stake claim to every inch of him. 

There was being possessed, and there was _belonging_. There was feeling like you were trapped by a person weak of will who intimidated you into staying, and there was staying in the arms of the person you _wanted_ to own you. Taeil somehow gleaned that Ten had experienced some of the former, which had been unimaginably painful and also instructional, teaching him how not to treat others. There was in the middle, of course: a solitary, natural state of being. But there was nothing quite as fulfilling as feeling like you were giving a part of yourself to fill the emptiness in someone else. And Taeil liked to entertain the thought that this was how he existed with Ten, even if he knew in the back of his mind it was all contrived for the necessary human need for purpose.

"How are you feeling?" Ten asked quietly over the faint sound of lawn mowing somewhere in the distance and the mid-morning smell of cut grass and dew dried to a mist.

"Sore," Taeil mumbled into the pillow. "Everywhere."

Ten laughed and leaned on his side, stroking down Taeil's bare back a few times before easing himself up, blankets falling to his hips, and crawling over Taeil so that his knees straddled the backs of Taeil's thighs.

The touch of Ten's hands was warm and inviting, as if he could pull Taeil off the bed and into the air like a magnet. He thumbed the inside of Taeil's shoulder blades lightly, then increased the pressure as he traced them in big circles, hitting all the major muscles and tendons across Taeil's back.

Taeil hummed and rolled his shoulders, moaning a bit when Ten got to the backs of his arms and the spaces tucked between his arm and torso. "You're good at this," Taeil commented into the pillow, spreading his arms out as Ten kneaded his skin.

"Took massage classes when I was in college," Ten said. "I wanted to be a masseuse for a while."

Taeil laughed a little lightly but without malice. "Why didn’t you?"

Ten snorted. "Found something that paid better, I guess."

Taeil breathed steadily, unbothered as long as Ten was unbothered. It felt wrong to pry into a past that wasn’t his, even if he wanted badly to share the burden. Ten continued down to Taeil’s lower back like it was nothing, kneading a little bit too hard so that it hurt good and drawing noises out of Taeil, who apparently tended to run his mouth in the slow of morning. "I could see you as one," Taeil mused after a while of silence.

"Oh?" said Ten, entertained as if Taeil were a kid.

"Mhm," Taeil replied. "You know, massage therapy. You, healing people who think they have no hope."

"Are you calling me a last resort?" retorted Ten, and Taeil whined petulantly.

"You know that’s not what I mean," he said, and Ten laughed. "I mean you surprise people. You know, someone with chronic pain comes into your office. And you give them the first moment of relief they’ve ever had in their entire life." _You give them a life they never imagined they could have_.

Ten breathed deeply in thought but didn’t falter with his motions. His hands seemed trained; he had phenomenal muscle memory and could make complicated, precise movements even when his mind was off somewhere tangled in mazes of thought. "Am I really that special?" Ten wondered aloud.

Without a beat of hesitance, Taeil said, "Yes." 

Ten let out that squeaky, sandy laugh he made when he was truly delighted and clapped his hands together once, and against his better judgment, Taeil realized he’d be staying the day.

—

"Let’s meet during the week," Ten suggested this time, a little less gloomy about Taeil having to leave than last weekend, which already made it easier.

"But I have to get up and go to class," Taeil said kind of stupidly, and it took a moment for Ten to figure out what he was talking about.

He laughed then, and Taeil brightened despite himself. "Oh, it doesn’t have to be _sex_. We can just, like, have lunch together or something," Ten replied.

_Oh_. _Like a date_ would be something to point out, but Taeil wasn’t fast enough, nor did it seem like a necessary or nice thing to say when they were already comfortable like this in the lobby of Ten’s apartment complex where Ten had gone down to see him off this time because he could. It was because they had the emotional availability to say goodbye so closely when they were going to see each other again soon, and it almost seemed like this might become their default instead of assuming that every week might be the last. 

"If you’re up for it," Ten added quickly and coolly, measuring Taeil’s lack of response. This was the rarely-seen insecure side of Ten, who always let things slide off a Teflon shield, but if you dug deeper, its material was only as thin as paper.

It was okay, Taeil decided. All parts of Ten were inherently okay. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t bad, though Ten didn’t seem to like letting the soft parts of his insides show. And ironically, when they had sex— when Ten let Taeil trust him truly and wholly— was when Ten seemed the most open and transparent. It was through sex they spoke without words. Fake-poetic, but true.

"Yes, of course," Taeil said, _breathed_ , and his bright smile seemed to assure Ten. This dynamic between them, the walled and the painfully honest, for better or worse seemed to work. 

Ten grinned. "You started it, with the whole cooking and everything."

"So what if I did," replied Taeil, and Ten shrugged lightly.

"I’ll pick you up on Tuesday," said Ten, "and we’ll go out. I don’t know anything about groceries, but I know every restaurant and cafe in this city."

Taeil’s heart fluttered suddenly, out of affection or excitement or maybe both, so he did what came to mind at the situation and pecked Ten on the lips before scurrying out of the lobby and to the bus stop, not waiting for Ten’s reaction.

So the mid-week dates began, sometimes twice a week, sometimes with Ten showing up on campus Tuesday afternoons managing to blend right in yet look like he owned the place at the same time. "Yeah, I used to date college kids when I was that age," Ten replied when Taeil commented on it. "They weren’t all that, though. Super condescending, and they were the most sheltered, naive kids I’d ever met."

Taeil laughed. "You didn’t teach them a thing or two?"

"They didn’t ask as nicely as you do," Ten said, tilting Taeil’s chin up delicately. Taeil suppressed a full-body shiver because they were in public, at the mall specifically, helping Taeil find some nice new dress shoes after Ten saw his worn out, ratty ones one day when Taeil was just coming out from a presentation in front of the advisory board. "You know I like teaching people, but only when they want to learn." 

"Amen to that," Taeil replied, and as they wandered through the mall, their hands brushed together. And what could’ve been tense silence between two friends mounted and bloomed into something both pleasurable and beautiful and had them stumbling out of the elevator and into Ten’s apartment with barely a thought to throw the lights on before Ten had Taeil against the wall and was devouring every inch of his neck. 

Ten always asked way beforehand if they had a free night together how Taeil would like it that night _should the opportunity arise_ , so that they wouldn’t have to worry about being in the right headspace to talk about it in the moment. Otherwise when they didn’t have that kind of foresight, Ten would make them stop, sit there in the middle of the floor or couch or bed, and fucking talk about it. It wasn’t smooth or organic or pretty, but Ten said smooth, pretty sex was only in movies. "It’s a necessary evil," Ten explained in a completely even voice, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his dick nearly poking a hole through his pants he was so turned on. "Otherwise I wouldn’t feel comfortable acting the way I do when we fuck, you know?"

And Taeil knew. It was awkward at first, and Ten had to push and pry and poke to get Taeil to talk, but Ten was persistent and clever and came up with hundreds of different lead-ins and ideas so that at first Taeil would only have to say yes or no until he got the hang of it. 

"I won’t suggest anything too intense right now," Ten said. "If it’s really intense it has to come out of your own mouth. I don’t want to say something that you say yes to and then end up regretting it."

"Okay," Taeil replied, but he wished Ten would trust himself as much as Taeil trusted him. Or maybe some small part of it felt like Ten didn't trust _Taeil_ — didn't trust him to use his safe word or communicate with Ten.

It was weird, going from lovers to friends to something in between, almost backward in comparison to traditional relationships, if what they had could be called a relationship at all. But getting the sex talk over with at the outset made it easier to talk about everything else, even if at first it was so embarrassing for Taeil to say what he wanted that he had to text it to Ten though they were sitting in the same room. 

**[3:43PM] Taeil:** I want you to fuck my face

Ten’s lack of physical reaction helped.

**[3:43PM] Ten:** oh that’s hot

**[3:44PM] Taeil:** and i want to deep throat you

**[3:44PM] Ten:** ok then we’ll start nice and slow

**[3:44PM] Ten:** i’ll fuck u slow at first until u get used to it, sound good?

**[3:45PM] Taeil:** Yes.. thank you

**[3:45PM] Ten:** love u

And then Ten slid an arm around Taeil’s shoulders and kissed him on the cheek and they went out to a movie that Taeil might have not paid attention to wholly because his heart was still thrumming in anticipation. It was a good movie, though, and the sounds and the smells of the theater enveloped Taeil, and because Ten was there, he felt comfortable and safe. 

There was no doubt that he loved Ten. He’d happily succumb to every demand of Ten’s, which wasn’t necessarily love, but it was _trust_ , an integral part of that whole romantic mess.

And that weekend, they were sitting on top of Ten's comforter kissing languidly like optimistic teenagers but smoother, knowing where to go and how to fit their mouths together. This was all the pretty Taeil needed; if moments like this could go smoothly, they could talk about the sex stuff and it would be okay; Taeil was actually getting better at it with practice. Ten's glower was both lidded and intense as he pulled away, and whenever he stared at Taeil like that, it felt like the first time again. It was a stare that conveyed both lust and something deeper that Taeil couldn't quite pin, but that mystery was part of what made his heart thrum the way it did every time. 

"Do you think edging would be okay?" Ten said, and Taeil tensed in arousal at the thought of it.

"Like orgasm denial," Taeil said, and Ten nodded, not moving his hands from where they were wrapped around his own ankles, his cross-legged posture both proper and casual in the light.

"Are you up for it?" said Ten.

"Yes, please," Taeil replied, biting his own lips after hearing how desperate he sounded.

Ten grinned a little. "I'll finger you until you're begging for it, how does that sound?"

Taeil moaned, practically crawling into Ten's lap, and Ten was there to receive him and meet him halfway.

Ten seemed to want everything slow today, to make it last. Taeil crushed his lips against Ten's, and Ten caught him but pulled away stealthily before sucking Taeil back in again, completely controlling the rhythm of their lips even though Taeil was shivering with need. "Behave," Ten whispered, and Taeil smiled tentatively into his mouth.

"And if I don't?" Taeil said, propping himself up on his knees so he was hovering over Ten a bit, cradling his face.

Ten growled and gripped the back of Taeil's neck, leaning in to suck a dark mark in his skin at first. But just as his lips touched Taeil's skin, he faltered a bit and his grip went slack. 

Taeil blinked and pulled back, staring Ten right in the eye. In response, almost sheepish, Ten leaned in and left a light kiss instead and brushed his hands against Taeil's shoulders. "Punish me," Taeil murmured again, and Ten _did_ react, at least. Reflection from the light out the windows flickered in his eyes as his pupils shuddered for a moment, but then he furrowed his brows and brought his hand up to touch Taeil's cheek.

"Not today, sweetie," Ten said softly. The look on his face, though, betrayed his voice. 

Seeing it there for the first time in this situation was a bit bizarre. Fear. Apprehension. Something Taeil didn't quite want to see or understand in Ten who was always dominant in these scenes, but at the same time it made him all the more human. It made him closer in a way that hurt.

Ten laughed, but his tone was a little sad. "I don't want to scare you away," he said, sounding awfully close to how Taeil had spoken all those months ago to Doyoung. Something was certainly _scared_ , but it wasn't Taeil. 

"It's okay," Taeil said, touching Ten's arm. "I'm okay. I want it."

But Ten shook his head, and it seemed final. "Not today, baby. You've been good."

Taeil's expression flinched a little, but he accepted this. He let Ten tug his pullover over his head and his t-shirt too and then work on the button on his jeans, and Taeil could feel himself get hard just from the proximity of Ten's hands as he watched him, mesmerized. But Ten left him there, jeans hanging open across his hips, pulled Taeil in for another slow kiss as he felt all around Taeil's body, worshipping it as Taeil keened and squirmed out of habit.

It wasn’t like Ten had never punished him before. It wasn’t like Ten had never been rough; the times when Ten groped him under the skirt or fucked him and pulled his hair came to mind. That wasn’t so long ago that Taeil hadn’t been able to ask for it, but long enough that Ten hadn’t started to become affected by this film of hesitance over him. But Taeil hadn’t asked him to tone it down; Taeil hadn’t done anything to change, but something in the air hinted that things were changing. 

Daylight washed over them. Ten feasted his eyes on Taeil who was less shy about his body as long as Ten was there to want it. They usually did this in the dark, and Taeil felt a flush spreading across his chest as he lied on his back and stared at Ten and spread his legs slow and sure. Ten seemed to like watching Taeil peel his own pants and underwear off, so he did just that, eyes wide and glued on Ten, probably blushing on command. The slow, steady pace was tantalizing, and once Ten finally laid his hands on Taeil’s inner thighs and pushed them apart himself, Taeil shivered and arched into the touch. 

Ten liked watching Taeil’s expressions, so they fucked a lot missionary style and Taeil had grown quite strong in his arms from holding his legs to his chest for extended periods of time. The way his muscles tensed too from the effort made all the blood rush down to his dick, bringing him to orgasm even faster. Ten laid kisses on the backs of Taeil’s thighs and bit into the flesh there as he kneaded Taeil’s ass in his hands, and Taeil’s breath quickened when Ten kissed and licked and bit all the way to Taeil’s ass and up his balls and dick. 

Taeil felt exposed like this, spreading himself open for Ten and Ten purposely paying no mind to it, wrapping his lips around the tip of Taeil’s dick instead and sucking lightly. When Ten _finally_ pushed at Taeil’s rim with two fingers, Taeil whined and tensed, and it took everything he had not to buck his hips up into Ten’s mouth. 

Ten sucked on Taeil’s dick hard and slow while his fingers alternated between quick thrusts, shallow and desperate and frustrating, and hard, long thrusts that brought Taeil close to the edge every time. 

"Ten, _Ten_ ," Taeil gasped when Ten brushed his prostate for just a moment. Precome spurted into Ten’s mouth, and Ten pulled off promptly, instead opting to ghost little kisses all over Taeil’s cock while opening Taeil up more with his fingers. The sting hurt good but it wasn’t enough. Ten focused frustratingly on the shallow part of Taeil’s ass while Taeil kept bucking down to push him deeper. 

"Not yet, kitten," Ten whispered against the base of Taeil’s cock, and Taeil thrashed his head back and forth, pressing his cheek into the mattress and squeezing his eyes shut.

"Please," Taeil whimpered, and Ten breathed out against Taeil’s hip in arousal, his hand jerking inside Taeil.

He rubbed Taeil’s prostate relentlessly until Taeil cried out, and then when Ten pulled out immediately after, nursing Taeil’s cock with little playful licks, Taeil could feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. 

Taeil bit down on his lip and let out little whines, his thighs trembling. "Ten, please," seemed to be all he could say, a mix of the two words spewing out from his mouth in high, needy train. The pricks of his fingernails against his own thighs were starting to mix with the hickeys Ten left there, and Taeil curled his toes and wrapped his legs around Ten, gasping.

"Beautiful," Ten murmured, staring down at Taeil again while folding his thumbs into Taeil’s entrance. Taeil’s dick twitched under the praise. He was so sensitive, so _close_ he could feel the warmth radiating from Ten’s lips even as he hovered over Taeil’s dick but didn’t touch it. 

The sheets were damp with Taeil’s sweat, and with both of his hands occupied he had nowhere to muffle his noises, which rang out in unsteady, vain little echoes against the windows. 

Ten himself was not silent either, groaning and panting as he watched Taeil. He leaned down between Taeil’s legs and pressed his whole body against him while they kissed, and Taeil grinded against Ten’s torso desperately, feeling how hard Ten was when he responded, rubbing back and tangling their tongues together in a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss. 

Taeil’s cries were short and pitchy as he was about to come, and this time Ten seemed to have trouble controlling himself, grabbing the base of Taeil’s cock at the last minute while continuing to rub his prostate relentlessly. Taeil screamed, and his hips stuttered while his insides started to throb with overstimulation, a jolt of pleasure running through his body but lasting only for an instant. His eyes were watery and cheeks tear-stained, and Ten continued to hold him until he stopped thrashing, shudders coursing through him at random intervals.

"Ten…" Taeil said weakly, and Ten rubbed his dick into his hand with two fingers still inside Taeil, and the way he moved against Taeil’s rim made Taeil gasp again, arching his back. "Let me come… ah— please," Taeil whined, and his voice cracked when Ten started fucking his dick against the side of Taeil’s thigh. It was so fucking _hot_ , but Ten’s fingers inside him had stilled completely, holding him against the edge as the lack of stimulation kept him dangling there, helpless.

Ten groaned and jerked off with long, hard strokes, and Taeil watched with bleary, watering eyes as Ten moaned and came unceremoniously against Taeil’s skin. " _Fuck_ ," Ten gasped, and Taeil sobbed and shifted again as Ten fucked into his own hand and milked himself through his orgasm.

"Ten," Taeil whimpered again, and when Ten looked at him, his gaze was hungry, piercing, even as he was coming down from his high. 

He pulled out for only a moment before rubbing his come all over Taeil’s thighs and shoving it into his ass with his fingers, and Taeil let out a soundless scream. "Taeil," Ten said, catching Taeil’s mouth in a hard kiss that Taeil barely had the strength to respond to. Ten then went down, nipping at random spots on Taeil’s skin before taking his cock into his mouth and twisting his fingers inside Taeil all in one move. 

"Oh god," Taeil gasped when Ten curled his fingers while he pulled out and then fucked Taeil hard and fast like that, licking around his cock and sucking. "Oh my god Ten, Ten I’m— I’m gonna come, ah—" Taeil said brokenly and this time, Ten didn’t stop, just pulled off and fucked him harder with his fingers.

"Then come, baby," Ten breathed, thumbing at the underside of Taeil’s dick, and Taeil went over the edge with a blend of noises, squeezing his skin and hooking his ankles around Ten’s back, rolling his body wildly as come shot up across his torso and continued to leak out of him in spurts. He came harder than he ever had before, white blanketing his vision while his body kept convulsing to the rhythm of the pleasure shooting through his veins over and over in bursts. 

By the time Taeil came to, feeling like he lost consciousness for a moment there with the intensity of his orgasm, his legs felt like jelly and his ass numb, barely registering Ten pulling his fingers out and splaying them across his thighs. He held Taeil up for a moment longer to watch come and lube seep out of his ass and licked his lips, gripping Taeil’s skin a little harder. 

Taeil’s chest heaved as he breathed, feeling absolutely wrecked but also tiredly peaceful. He shot a toothy smile at Ten, who was now kneeling beside him and brushing his hair to the side. "That was fun," Taeil said, and Ten looked down affectionately at him, his smile barely-there and soft. 

"You okay?" replied Ten, and Taeil nodded, closing his eyes and flattening himself against the sheets even if it felt gross. He breathed out and rolled onto his side and made grabby hands toward Ten’s face, and Ten leaned down and obliged. Taeil’s lips were bruised and swollen, and it felt a little tingly to kiss Ten now even as they just rested their mouths against each others’. 

It was still early evening and it had started raining. The repetitive sounds blurred out noises of the city, and this high up they were closer to the thunder quietly rumbling in the distance. 

"Want some chocolate?" Ten blurted out, and Taeil stared at him for a moment before laughing. "I passed the store the other day and they were on sale," he explained, sliding off the bed and kicking his undone pants into the corner of the room before digging through his backpack and a pile of jackets for a flat gold box. "Here," Ten said loudly, thrusting the box toward Taeil and staring at his hands. "I’m gonna go get some water."

So there they were, back to sitting on the sheets like before except now they were naked. Taeil let the chocolate melt in his mouth and listened to Ten talk about how it was good for your blood sugar. They’d probably call delivery for dinner and strip the sheets while they were waiting, and Taeil fit well in Ten’s clothes so he’d long since stopped bringing a change of his own. Ten propped his elbows on his knees and watched Taeil with a delicate look, his chin in his hand and a slight pout on his lips as if, almost against his will, he couldn’t look away. 

"You okay?" Taeil said, poking a chocolate toward Ten’s face, and Ten blinked and closed his lips around it with a grin.

"Yeah," he said. "Taeil, I—" he started, then paused and chewed thoughtfully for a while.

"Mhm?" Taeil hummed, and Ten sighed.

"I was just thinking I… should probably call that fried chicken place down the street," he said, and Taeil nodded, watching Ten as he slid off the bed and threw on a hoodie. 

Things were changing, and Taeil was helpless against the tide. He’d gone into it without many expectations for how things would turn out. For a while that meant wanting to maybe stay with Ten forever but not minding if that couldn’t happen. Now, the thought sickened him. He couldn’t imagine a life without Ten. The prospect of losing Ten forever was terrifying, but Taeil had never been one to butt up against the powers that be. Now was the first time he ever felt he needed to: that something, or some _one_ , was important enough.

He was falling in love, and he didn’t know why he felt so scared of it. 

—

It might’ve been unfair to Doyoung for Taeil to only text him in the middle of the week in times of distress, especially after keeping this entire fiasco a complete secret from him. Half of Doyoung’s identity was built on being the first to know about everything in their friend group, particularly matters concerning love and Moon Taeil. But ironically, out of everyone, Doyoung would understand. He’d know why, without words or theatrics, Taeil had made the decision to pursue this secretly. And he’d forgive him. 

That was why, when Doyoung stalked into the dimly lit bar in a wash of afternoon sunlight and kissed Taeil square on the mouth, the first thing Taeil thought to say was, "Red."

Doyoung pulled back and blinked for a moment before it seemed to dawn on him in cartoonishly slow motion. Doyoung’s expressiveness was something Taeil always liked about him, though. The less layers there were to Doyoung’s person, the less room Taeil had to misinterpret it. Stoic people weren’t always emotionless— some of them had too much emotion, like when you mixed too many colors together and they just got all muddied together. Doyoung, on the other hand, was a pure and bright pigment that stood out against the background. "You’re lucky I know what you mean by that," Doyoung said flatly, but with the same caring, kind of pitiful tone he always used with Taeil. 

"Sorry," Taeil said sheepishly, rubbing his pant leg and looking down. "I’m— I’m in a relationship. Kinda. I mean, it’s complicated."

It was an organized mess masked by a simple exterior. He and Ten, they talked about the weather, and they talked about heat-activated lube. There was no in between. Well, the in-betweens Ten usually gave one-worded answers or shut them down, things like his family or friends or personal life. Ten seemed comfortable with silences, but whenever Taeil wasn’t for whatever reason, Ten, as if guilty, would bring up something noncommittal like guitars or theme parks and talk for ages about it, and even just the sound of his voice or the motions of him talking were comforting in those moments when Taeil was afraid he’d overstepped a boundary.

That was what was changing: for whatever reason, they were becoming scared. The honeymoon period of being lost in each other was over, and now it was, at least for Taeil, a test to see how long they could make it last, and it felt like they were balancing precariously on a fulcrum between differing needs and the passage of time. Either could destroy them, so they did everything they could to concede. 

Doyoung sighed. "I should be the one apologizing. I should’ve asked. I just got over a bad breakup, and this was… timely."

They both eyed the bar and looked at each other, then laughed, cutting through the tension noticeably. "A drink for your troubles?" Doyoung said, and Taeil nodded.

He confessed. He confessed the entire thing, as if he were kneeling in front of an altar. He talked about eHarmony-or-whatever-the-hell, he talked about the sex, he talked about Ten and all the little things he noticed about him, what little bit Taeil had gleaned off him after all these months and all the inferences he made from Ten’s behavior, and how _in love_ with him he was. "I’m so in love with him, Doyoung," Taeil complained, surprising even himself. "I’m so in love it hurts."

Doyoung fidgeted, seeming at odds with himself. After a moment, he said, "Well, on one hand, it all sounds very complicated. On the other hand, I can’t help but be jealous. What you’ve got here isn’t a problem at all."

Taeil had learned not to take anything Doyoung said to heart. If he told you something was unfair, it wasn’t because he wanted to make you feel bad, he just wanted you to know it was unfair. Generally, he was pretty accurate about these kinds of things, too. 

"What’s wrong with being in love?" Doyoung mused, scratching the back of his neck behind his ear.

"Don’t laugh, but I don’t know if he likes me back, and I don’t want to ruin what we have," Taeil said, having rehearsed the line in his head like 45 times prior to this. It was a lot more convoluted than that, and Doyoung seemed to pick up on this. There was only so much you could ask of a friend before in the end having to decide for yourself anyway.

Doyoung laughed, but it was gentle and unoffensive. "I mean, he literally fucks you then buys you chocolate. What else is there to say?" Taeil squirmed, and Doyoung sighed. "I know, I know. I mean, you know him better than me, but from what you’ve told me, I’m pretty sure he’s, like, madly in love with you."

"What makes you say that," Taeil said a little hopelessly, because what friend would tell you 'nah man, you’ve got your head up your ass. He’s just not that into you.' Except Doyoung kinda seemed like the type who would totally do that.

Doyoung made a funny expression, then grinned. "Well, let’s call it personal experience. I mean, I’ve got a friend like that. Kinda sunny, not very open about themselves."

Taeil groaned and flopped over the bar countertop. "Doyoung, Ten and I are not similar, I mean, I _wish_ —"

"Oh, moreso than you think," Doyoung said, rubbing Taeil’s back softly. "When someone like that wants to give up being protected to protect you instead, you know it’s love."

"I don’t really understand…" Taeil lied, and Doyoung knew this, giving him that chastising stare, but eventually he let it go.

"What do you have to lose?" Doyoung continued. "As it is now, it’s just hurting you. And he’d probably be upset if he knew this."

Doyoung was right. Ten hated hurting Taeil. The sex, they both knew by this point, was mutually beneficial, but Ten always massaged him afterward and let him have the bed, got him water and his favorite snacks, answered all his questions. Ten trusted that Taeil would let him know when it hurt too much. And, emotionally at least, Taeil had betrayed that trust; it was starting to hurt more on the inside than on the outside but Taeil didn’t know how to let Ten know about that. There were no safe words you could just blurt out in the middle of dinner because you were so in love with someone that it hurt.

Doyoung played with his phone a little and gave Taeil space to ponder until, after a moment, he murmured, "Wow," and Taeil looked up. "Oh, I just found his dating profile," Doyoung said, scrolling. "He’s quite the catch. Hasn’t logged on in months though, so there’s that."

"I think I trusted him enough not to check," Taeil mumbled, but he probably would’ve forgiven Ten through all the unspoken difficulties of their vague relationship, as long as Ten broke up with him before _formally_ seeing anyone else. 

"You’ve… literally never looked at this before, have you?" said Doyoung, and Taeil laid his head on his arm before looking at Doyoung quizzically.

"I mean, he messaged me first," Taeil replied. "No need." 

"It just… says here he was looking to settle down," said Doyoung.

"… What?"

Doyoung slid the phone toward Taeil and pointed at the screen. "Interested in men, looking for a long-term relationship," Doyoung said, and they leaned over and peered together. Taeil hadn’t known how to interpret this at the time. Why would Ten have messaged Taeil, who had no idea what he was looking for, if Ten was looking for something stable? And why did he stay when what they had was so undefined yet intense? "It’s not much, but he’s really putting himself out there for you," said Doyoung, which was the answer Taeil was not letting himself believe: that the reason Ten kept letting him back was that he wanted, like Taeil, to be more.

Hope was scary. It was also scary accepting that you could both be hurting yet inflict the hurt at the same time. So he denied it. "I’m just another fling," he said sulkily, and Doyoung smacked his shoulder.

"Come on, do you really think he would’ve suggested being exclusive if he just wanted sex? Plus, I’m sure he has plenty of places to get it from other than an online dating site."

The last thing Taeil had wanted to do was hurt Ten. Yet by fearing that Ten didn’t want him, he’d been hurting him all this time. 

Doyoung laughed then, clapping Taeil’s back. "It’s almost like he only knows where to get sex, and you only know where to get great romantic partners like me, and you both fumbled to online dating as a last resort."

It sounded eerily accurate. "You’re too perceptive," Taeil grumbled, and Doyoung laughed.

"Ah, I’m jealous," Doyoung said, leaning back in his chair.

"Please, you wouldn’t stand a chance with him, Mr. Vanilla Bean Latte," Taeil said, and Doyoung shoved at his shoulder. "What," said Taeil, grinning, "You seem like the type who wouldn’t be caught dead in a skirt."

Doyoung’s eyes widened comically, like they always did, and Taeil giggled under a nice warm haze of inebriation and relief. "No, you didn’t," said Doyoung.

"It was hot," Taeil replied blankly, and Doyoung flushed, incredulous. 

So Taeil had learned that with Doyoung, it was Yuta. Doyoung didn’t want to be taken care of: he could bottom the hell out of anyone, but he was feisty and wanted someone to bother him and push his buttons and be just as strong as he was but still love him with all of his being. Considering that his last venture was Jaehyun, Taeil was not as surprised as he expected when Doyoung said this new complication was Nakamoto Yuta. In fact, the only surprising thing was that everyone thought Yuta was straight, including Yuta himself.

"And I— I rejected him because I don’t want to be some straight guy’s little experiment," Doyoung finished, wringing his hands.

Taeil took a sip of wine; he’d veered off that hard liquor stuff and never liked the taste of it anyway. "Doyoung-ah, we’ve known Yuta for what, four years?"

"Five and counting," Doyoung said in a resigned voice.

"Right," said Taeil. "You know he wouldn’t do that. He’s a flirt but a hopeless romantic. I guess we’re the lucky few who know."

"God, what have I done?" Doyoung said, exasperated. "I should’ve known. How else could a guy with such a fragile sense of masculinity hang with a bunch of gay dudes and be perfectly fine with it?"

Taeil snickered and delighted himself with Doyoung’s brand of logic and self-validation. "It’s okay," said Taeil. "Sometimes we all feel like Yuta could deal with a smack in the face or two, as long as you go comfort him when he’s sulking." After a while of Doyoung muttering out some more nonsense about how Yuta wasn’t even _out_ yet and asked Doyoung so respectfully to be patient with him and how it was so fucking cute, Taeil sighed and said, "You’re strong, Doyoung."

Doyoung smiled and snorted a breath out of his nose. "You too, you know. But we’re both goddamn idiots."

Taeil sighed and swirled the wine around in his glass. It was a Cabernet Sauvignon, mellow and dry but smooth going down. "I guess I can drink to that." 

So that was Doyoung’s straightforward advice in this weird rocky period of Taeil and Ten’s relationship, but Doyoung was good at getting what he wanted. He was smart; he made a decision, thought it through, wavered to the other side and thought _that_ through, then gave up and ended up going with his first option anyway. Doyoung seemed to live a double life, at odds with a person inside him that he’d made up to serve as a voice of reason. But Doyoung was always true to himself, so that "voice" in him ended up just getting smacked around, which somehow made Doyoung more confident in his decisions.

Taeil on the other hand was a simple but peculiar creature. _He_ didn’t even know what he was thinking about half the time, which was okay until he had to make important life choices. Doyoung had a steady anxiety that always seemed to eat at him but spurred him on to action whether his decisions were rational or rationalized. For Taeil, the road was never clear. It sometimes felt like every time he woke up he forgot where he was going, where he was headed in life.

Now, knowing what he wanted didn’t make anything easier. There was a light somewhere in the distance, but he still had no clue how to get there.

—

"I wonder if you’ve ever topped before, Taeil," Ten was saying one night while Taeil lied on his front, cheek pressed against the pillow and eyes reluctantly closed. 

Taeil waited, saying nothing. They were talking about sex history and sex terms, having gotten there from seeing an ad on Youtube while they were lying in bed on their phones. Ten was surprisingly knowledgeable, though maybe Taeil should’ve expected that from the outset. Taeil only dug into information he needed at that moment, which was why everything seemed to surprise him so often. He was perceived as gentle and harmless and had half a thought to accept that as how he was. 

What was Ten so afraid of? It couldn’t be Taeil himself. Ten was clever and had options. The road that was always foggy to Taeil Ten seemed to cut through as if his eyes were headlights. Maybe it was letting Taeil get too close when Ten knew from experience that they would end up just fizzling out later. Maybe he was keeping Taeil at arm’s length on purpose because Taeil wasn’t what he was looking for and Ten didn’t want it to hurt too bad when he broke Taeil’s heart later. Ten was considerate; it seemed like something he’d do. (The question of whether or not he’d even want to break Taeil’s heart in the first place never crossed Taeil’s mind, of course.)

"I haven’t," Taeil mumbled, glancing at Ten. He knew there were terms for this but never gave it much thought.

Ten’s hand slid across Taeil’s shoulder blades gently. "Would you like to?" he said in a distant voice, and Taeil sniffed. There it was again: Ten unsure, scared, and trying not to show it by conceding to Taeil options they’d never bothered to consider before because it was never necessary. This was Ten making sure all fronts were covered.

"No, not really," Taeil said after a moment of thought. There was always something raw about Ten when he fucked Taeil; he was desperate and rough as if they were having a dialogue, as if Ten were merely responding to the stimuli Taeil gave him. It was raw, but it was good and warm to Taeil, knowing that he had as much of an effect on Ten as Ten did on him. It was warm to see Ten lose himself to that.

Ten hummed as if mildly surprised. "You sure?"

"Yeah, I’m quite all right being… exclusively a bottom," said Taeil.

"What if I said I wanted you to fuck me?" said Ten, looking out at nothing and holding his knees. Taeil opened his eyes at this point, and Ten looked relaxed enough but also distant. His eyebrows seemed to furrow and flutter in the light. Taeil had seen it many times, but Ten never closed his eyes for this long; he almost always watched Taeil, which was something beautiful: knowing Ten was there, knowing he had every ounce of Ten’s attention; it felt secure in a way that this didn’t. When Ten closed his eyes, he could be anywhere in the universe, or locked away in himself. And it was frightening. 

The question seemed to hit Taeil's gut like a square, well-placed punch. While Ten could read Taeil like a magazine, to Taeil, Ten was still shrouded in mystery. Ten _was_ the light, the thing Taeil wanted at the end of the road. It seemed like Taeil was sure of at least this much, the warmth that radiated from what could only be Ten. But everything around him was drenched in a thick fog that he dragged and put there himself. "I— I…" mumbled Taeil, his voice coming out lost.

Ten seemed to look through him. Like he was trying so hard to cut the fog of uncertainty that he missed Taeil in the process. They talked about everything they could yet still lacked cohesion. There were still so many things Taeil didn’t understand. Ten’s eyes made a hard, chilly line, but they glowed with thought, confusion, and vulnerability. He sighed a little sadly, wrapping his hands around his knees more. "I’m sorry," he said, and Taeil glanced his way. "We should’ve talked about it another time."

"No, I—" Taeil replied, composing himself. "I think I’d have to say no. I wouldn’t do it, even if you wanted me to." 

This jarred Ten back into reality. Though his movements were always subtle, Taeil had been around him long enough now to pick up on every little shift in his muscles without even actively trying. It seemed like pure luck, drawing Ten’s attention back to the present. He slid down next to Taeil so that they were facing each other, the blanked draped over his naked waist. "Talk to me, baby."

Taeil had never thought about this before, so it took a while to formulate an answer. He wasn’t insecure, but he wasn’t by any means _confident_. And that was fine. To imagine himself controlling felt so far removed from the image he aspired toward that in the end, it was just uncomfortable. "I don’t… it’s not hot," Taeil said instead. 

Ten grinned a little bit. "Yeah, it totally is. You haven’t tried."

Taeil scrunched his nose. "Not for me, I mean."

And Ten kept touching Taeil’s face, stroking his eyebrows, his cheeks, his lips, and Taeil closed his eyes but was keenly aware of the pads of Ten’s fingers, warm and soft, against his skin. Ten was waiting for him.

"I— I don’t want to hurt you," Taeil said after a beat. His eyes were still closed. 

Words were difficult because they never held half the weight of what Taeil wanted to express. And with Ten, with the right amount of trust, Taeil could essentially communicate with his body instead. Ten’s body, though, seemed closed up in a way that couldn’t be opened like that. Gentle physical coercion would get nowhere, but using force would only break it. 

Taeil wanted to open Ten up, too, but not like that.

Ten at first seemed like high-risk high-reward kind of guy who ran on adrenaline and thrill: he lived on the top story of a luxurious apartment, went out to eat every night, and had people over whom he’d barely met. But under the surface, he, too, felt confusion. When you wandered that long without purpose, it tended to build up inside you. Taeil knew this from vegetating in limbo for so long, while Ten ran the opposite side of the spectrum, rejecting boredom with every fiber of his being.

It suddenly dawned on Taeil the gravity of what Doyoung had pointed out with Ten wanting to settle down and how it had everything to do with the ledge that they teetered on now. Ten fumbled with this. He fumbled with the chocolate, with the grocery store, and with the unexpected things you heard when you spent every waking moment with the same person. He liked it, but he didn’t know how to perform it. And now, he was fumbling with the concept of compromise that was part of every long-term relationship, but he centered it around all the wrong things. He’d never had to make something last before: relationships he didn’t like could just be discarded with the press of a button on a screen. Delete the contact. Go somewhere new. He insisted Taeil talk about it because he wanted to please but didn’t know how.

And he fumbled so unnecessarily often because Taeil was too damn scared to even ask.

"I wish," Taeil said, eyeing Ten as if testing the waters. Ten’s ears seemed to perk up at this like an animal’s. "I wish you could talk to me— like, I don’t want you to be alone," said Taeil.

Ten took a moment to play with this in his head. He was like a cat batting at a new toy. "… Are you worried?" he said finally. "About me?"

Taeil nodded, and Ten sighed.

They lied there for a while, and Taeil crawled so that he was half draped over Ten, just feeling the rise and fall of Ten’s chest. His own breath pushed against it without any sort of discernible rhythm. It was like them; they were not routine or normal, they didn’t stick to any sort of schedule other than the one built on knowing inside that Ten would arrive today, that he told Taeil yesterday he’d be there some time between 2 and 3, and Taeil trusting this to be true. That trust was earned because they never broke promises, which was all Taeil ever really wanted. 

"You’re right… and you’re wrong," Ten said finally, draping an arm around Taeil’s shoulder. "I’m not as mysterious and glamorous as you think I am."

"You never tell me anything," Taeil mumbled and flinched as if he’d accidentally shot a gun at someone. 

But Ten’s hand was steady and warm. "I know," he said. "And I’m sorry."

Taeil nodded and continued breathing. Talking it out was hard work because it took so much unnecessary effort to hold onto the expectations you didn’t want to let go of, only in the end you were forced to let go anyway.

"My parents live in Thailand, and I have a younger sister," Ten continued. "We have good relations. I go back to visit sometimes, and they call me every week."

This was normal, Taeil realized. Ten was whole. "Why didn’t you ever tell me these things?" Taeil asked.

Ten shrugged and rubbed his forehead. "I guess I figured you wouldn’t want to know. Like I _wanted_ to be mysterious, so you’d come back for more. Like we were just… strangers fucking."

Taeil sniffed, hanging on to Ten a little tighter. 

"Because that was how my relationships were in the past, you know," Ten continued. "I mean, I chose that life and I’m not ashamed of it." Ten threaded his hands through Taeil’s hair and rubbed his scalp lightly then combed through the tresses. "I didn’t mean to scare you."

"I’m not scared," Taeil said petulantly, and when Ten replied with a soft laugh, Taeil sniffed again.

"I wanted to be novel," Ten said. "That’s all I know. I wanted to be new and shiny so you wouldn’t get tired of me."

The vacant, faraway stare Ten sometimes used was Ten apprehensive about the past. This new, bubbling fear: this was Ten apprehensive about the now. The past was made up of events Ten didn’t like but couldn’t change, but this was Ten finally at a place where he wasn’t content with his life, didn’t want to just go with the flow; where he had something he wanted to fight for and the fear in his eyes was the inability to accept that it was out of his control. They were more similar than they thought. "What do _you_ want?" Taeil asked suddenly. 

Ten pulled back, and his face was bright but uncertain and crowned with a hesitant laugh. "I get what I want every time— you think I’d be able to look at you and call you baby boy and fuck you like that if I didn’t want it?"

Taeil shook his head and stretched his arms behind his head in a relaxed gesture, which Ten seemed to find curious, watching Taeil's muscles move with fascination and resigning himself to looking anywhere but at Taeil's face. "I mean as a person, outside of that," Taeil said. "For us."

"I—" Ten started, then stared at Taeil. And Taeil finally saw clarity in this moment. In the eyes of Ten, realizing he didn’t have to hide anymore, there was the clarity of having given up the self-destructive behaviors that kept you afloat and just letting yourself fall free to the hands of fate. "I don’t want to lose you," Ten said finally, still looking a little disappointed with himself after the fact.

"You won’t," Taeil said in a gentle voice, but the expression on Ten’s face said he didn’t believe him. Taeil touched Ten’s face, and Ten closed his eyes, his eyebrows a little furrowed again. This was the first time Taeil had really reached for him of his own accord without the intent to kiss him, and it wasn’t because he didn’t want to or was ashamed, it just literally never crossed his mind. 

A wave of regret suddenly washed over Taeil, because he wasn’t free of fault for not assuring Ten that he, too, wanted to stay. That he, too, was scared— all the things he told Doyoung that he just assumed Ten knew. But apologizing now wouldn’t do any good because Ten was an understanding person; he _knew_ Taeil wasn’t malicious, that he didn’t mean it. But that didn’t mean Ten didn’t still need it. What seemed to scare him wasn’t that Taeil would stay: it was that Taeil would leave. It wasn’t that Ten wanted anything different than this: it was that Taeil might want something different, and that _because_ Taeil wasn’t malicious, and _because_ Ten was in love and just wanted Taeil to be happy, he’d have to let him go. The fear in Ten was two sides of his inner selfishness, his human needs and wants, at war with each other. And the only thing Taeil could do was to assure him, now, that they didn’t have to be. 

"You know that thing you said before? About us just being strangers who fuck?" said Taeil, looking down and playing with his hands, suddenly nervous. "It’s— it’s wrong."

"What do you mean?" said Ten, though they both knew very well what Taeil meant. But Ten seemed to like it when Taeil voiced things, and he owed Ten at least this.

"I want us to be more than that," said Taeil, his words feeling awkward and rusty, stumbling along without practice. "Like, dating. Or— I mean, we already go on dates. So like lovers. With a future together."

"That doesn’t scare you?" Ten said, and Taeil laughed.

"You know what scares me," he said. "Dangerous things, and meeting people I don’t know, and when everyone is staring at me." Taeil put his hands on Ten’s shoulders, where his neck met his back. "You… I feel safe around you."

"I’m glad," Ten replied with his whole face smiling, even his eyes. "Because I don’t want to let you go."

The sun was just about starting to rise. They had fucked earlier the evening before and had promptly fallen asleep at like 8, and consequently Taeil had woken up in some ass o’clock hour of dawn to find Ten already awake. Taeil felt like he could fall back asleep, his heart was so warm with weightlessness. So he did what he should’ve done a long time ago and pulled up Ten’s profile on the old app on his phone, unused and gathering the dust of skipped software updates. Ten's profile picture, which Taeil had seen millions of times, was him at an outdoor restaurant, grinning in front of a fruity drink.

_just ten._  
Interested in: men  
Looking for: long-term relationship 

_Bio:_  
from thailand!  
likes: hiphop, Beyonce, and dogs.  
dislikes: teenagers and spiders. 

_goes to therapy on tuesdays. teaches dance on wednesdays and thursdays. if you’re one of my dance ladies, sorry I’m gay. you’ll find someone someday…_

Ten really was rather ordinary. Maybe he’d left the extraordinary part of his life behind, or maybe it was fun until it wasn’t. Ten wrapped his arms around Taeil from behind and nuzzled into the back of his neck, peppering kisses along his nape. Being extraordinary, being the center of people’s worlds, was taking, and Ten liked to give. That was how he healed himself, and Taeil, just by merit of being there for him, could help. Taeil saw no reason not to believe this.

"I thought we were doing pretty good at communicating, too," Ten sighed into Taeil’s neck, and Taeil hummed a little breathily, tilting his head toward the pillow and baring more of himself for Ten. 

"We still are," he said while Ten took his time savoring his skin. Ten kissed a spot in the junction of his neck and shoulder slowly in silent agreement, and Taeil pressed himself closer so he could feel more of Ten. This wasn’t some dramatic overture because they didn’t let it get to that. Their talks took place softly and behind closed doors with the sheets piled around them like little daisies. They were whole, and they were okay. Ten sighed in pleasure at the friction and latched on.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had the idea for this stewing for several months now and must've reworked the plot nearly a hundred times after I started this with no idea where it was going or how to get them together. I'm glad I finally finished! It's not a popular pairing but I've been absolutely enamored with this dynamic between them for ages. Thank you all so much for reading this and I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
